Hardware/Software Solution to Improve Security in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

In this position paper, we advocate for developing comprehensive software/hardware techniques to mitigate the effects of malicious nodes – these techniques must be integrated into routing protocols. The techniques include novel hardware monitoring schemes. One fundamental issue that needs to be addressed is how to secure these networks while guaranteeing a level of performance. We believe that research in this field needs to be focused on two major thrusts: (i) detection, identification and isolation of malicious nodes by software/hardware techniques and (ii) secure, Quality-of-Service-aware routing. Involving different layers of the protocol stack, identifying interdependencies of the problem solutions to fine-tune them, and using independent hardware monitoring schemes could accomplish these objectives. The proposed multi-layer software/hardware approach will greatly enhance ad-hoc networks security.