On vulnerability and protection of ad hoc on-demand distance vector protocol

Vulnerabilities and attacks on the ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocol are investigated and studied via analysis and simulation. The attacks are classified by their target properties. The analysis shows that the on-demand route query enables the malicious host to conduct real time attacks on AODV. False distance vector and false destination sequence attacks are studied by simulation. Two connection scenarios are considered: common destination and uniformly distributed traffic load. The delivery ratio, attack overhead, and the propagation of false routes are measured by varying the number of connections and the mobility of the hosts. The simulation results illustrate that the attacker can confuse the network connectivity with false routes and lead to a decrease in the delivery ratio of up to 75%. When the hosts are uniformly distributed, the false distance vector attacks cannot cheat more than half of the hosts, but the false destination sequence routes can propagate to most of the network. The anomaly patterns of sequence numbers carried by routing request (RREQ) can be applied to detect the false destination sequence attacks. The vulnerability analysis results and anomaly patterns can be employed by other ad hoc routing protocols to establish intrusion prevention and detection mechanisms.