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Packet-Dropping Attack

  • Reference work entry
Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security

Related Concepts

Node Compromises; Secure Routing

Definition

Packet-dropping attack is a type of denial-of-service (DoS) attack that drops packets to make the source and the destination perceive disconnection or degradation of path quality.

Background

In an ad hoc network, nodes form the network collaboratively without using any infrastructure. Different from the Internet, ad hoc nodes are both end hosts and routers. In order to deliver packets, they must ask other nodes to forward packets in the network. Such cooperation is critical to the aliveness of the network. However, since nodes are not trustable in ad hoc networks, a malicious or a compromised node, residing on a path, can drop packets forwarded along that path. Such malicious actions disrupt normal packet forwarding and may further cause denial of service (DoS) or change the network-routing topology.

Theory

Packet-dropping attacks can target various kinds of packets at or above the network layer. It requires attacking nodes...

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Recommended Reading

  1. Kuzmanovic A, Knightly EW (2003) Low-rate TCP-targeted denial of service attacks: the shrew vs. the mice and elephants, Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, Karlsruhe, Germany, pp 75–86

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  2. Aad I, Hubaux JP, Knightly E (2004) Denial of service resilience in ad hoc networks. Proceedings of ACM MobiCom, Philadelphia, pp 202–215

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  3. Zhang X, Wu SF, Fu Z, Wu TL (2000) Malicious packet dropping: how it might impact the TCP performance and how we can detect it. Proceedings of IEEE ICNP, pp 263–272

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  4. Papadimitratos P, Haas ZJ (2003) Secure message transmission in mobile ad hoc networks. Ad Hoc Networks J 1(1):193–209

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  5. Buchegger S, Le Boudec J-Y (2002) Performance analysis of the CONFIDANT protocol (cooperation of nodes – fairness in dynamic ad hoc networks). Proceedings of ACM MobiHoc, Philadelphia, pp 226–236

    Google Scholar 

  6. Shao M, Zhu S, Cao G, La Porta T, Mohapatra P (2008) A cross-layer dropping attack in video streaming over ad hoc networks. Proceedings of Securecomm, Istanbul

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Texas State University-San Marcos, 78666, San Marcos, Texas, USA

    Qijun Gu (Prof.)

Authors
  1. Qijun Gu
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics and Computing Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Henk C. A. van Tilborg

  2. Center for Secure Information Systems, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 22030-4422, USA

    Sushil Jajodia

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© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Cite this entry

Gu, Q. (2011). Packet-Dropping Attack. In: van Tilborg, H.C.A., Jajodia, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5906-5_635

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