Self Adjusted Security Architecture for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs)

• Published in: 6th IEEE/ACIS International Conference on Computer and Information Science (ICIS 2007) pp. 682 - 687
• Main Authors: Ghalwash, A.Z., Youssif, A.A.A., Hashad, S.M., Doss, R.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01-07-2007
• Subjects: Ad hoc networks; Authentication; certificate authority (CA) and Warrant node; Certification; Cryptographic protocols; Lagrangian functions; mobile ad hoc network (MANETs); Mobile ad hoc networks; Network topology; Public key; Public key cryptography; Robustness
• ISBN: 0769528414; 9780769528410
• DOI: 10.1109/ICIS.2007.163

In this work we present a novel security architecture for MANETs that merges the clustering and the threshold key management techniques. The proposed distributed authentication architecture reacts with the frequently changing topology of the network and enhances the process of assigning the node's public key. In the proposed architecture, the overall network is divided into clusters where the clusterheads (CH) are connected by virtual networks and share the private key of the central authority (CA) using Lagrange interpolation. Experimental results show that the proposed architecture reaches to almost 95.5% of all nodes within an ad-hoc network that are able to communicate securely, 9 times faster than other architectures, to attain the same results. Moreover, the solution is fully decentralized to operate in a large-scale mobile network.