Side channel monitoring: Packet drop attack detection in wireless ad hoc networks

Wireless ad hoc networks have great potentials in a broad range of applications. Their inherent vulnerability to various network attacks however limits their wide adaptation and deployment in practice. In this paper we address one of the most dangerous attacks, packet drop attack, in wireless ad hoc networks by post-routing detection. We introduce a simple, effective detection technique Side Channel Monitoring (SCM). The idea is to use nodes adjacent to a data communication route to monitor the message forwarding behavior of the nodes en route. These monitoring nodes constitute a directional side channel toward the source, in parallel to the backward route (primary channel). On observing misbehavior, they issue alarm packets to the source node through both channels. Considering channel disconnectivity (topologically or due to malicious packet drop), we analytically study the security strength of SCM including detection rate and expected number of detected attacks. Numeric results show that it is effective in various network scenarios.