Analysis of Identity Forging Attack in MANETs

In Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs) source and destination generally needs multihops to transfer data packets. Hence the number of nodes from source to destination increases. This property has render it vulnerable to attacks. We use the identity forging property of Sybil attack to propose an attack named "Identity Forging". In this attack, an attacker impersonates fake identity to affect the performance of network by sending the control packets through the identity of fabricated node and itself remaining silent. This makes it immune to the basic detection techniques of Sybil attack where both the attacker and its fake identity work simultaneously and thus can be detected if heard together for long period. The attacker also keeps changing the fabricated identity every time the link fails. Two different variations of this attack has been presented with their analysis and their impact on the performance of MANETs. In the end a possible detection algorithm for the attack has been proposed.