Elsevier

Computer Networks

Volume 122, 20 July 2017, Pages 163-178
Computer Networks

A novel packet salvaging model to improve the security of opportunistic routing protocols

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2017.04.019Get rights and content

Abstract

Opportunistic Routing (OR) protocols are designed to address the reliability of traditional routing protocols in wireless networks. The main concept behind OR protocols is to select a set of candidates (instead of a single) in each step of the routing process to collaboratively route data packets towards their destination. However, choosing a higher number of next-hop nodes increases the probability of selecting malicious candidates in hostile environments. In this paper, we propose a packet salvaging model, which empowers OR protocols to defend against malicious nodes by saving a proportion of dropped or manipulated packets. The proposed approach is modeled using Discrete-Time-Markov–Chain (DTMC), and is applicable in wireless mesh networks. Furthermore, in addition to the proposal of a novel method of calculating various network parameters, including packet delivery ratio, drop ratio, expected number of transmissions, and hop count specific to this model, two new network parameters are introduced known as salvage ratio and direct-delivery ratio. Finally, a comprehensive set of performance evaluations is conducted, using both analytical methods and network simulation. Evaluation results show that the proposed model can significantly nullify the effects of malicious nodes, and increase the network performance.

Introduction

Opportunistic Routing (OR) is a challenging direction of research which explores how to deliver data packets to their destination with greater reliability [1]. More precisely, the routing process in OR protocols is divided into three major steps known as candidate selection, candidate coordination, and performing retransmissions. In the candidate selection step, network nodes are forced to select and prioritize a subset of neighbors to act as their candidate set, and to assist in forwarding packets. Recall that unlike traditional routing protocols such as AODV, DSR, OLSR, etc. [2], which select only one node in each hop of the routing, the idea of OR protocols is to utilize the broadcast characteristics of wireless signal propagation, and to provide a fault tolerant mechanism for routing data packets. In fact, if a candidate node is not currently accessible, other candidates can assist in directing packets towards their destination. The second phase in OR is known as candidate coordination, in which candidate nodes collaborate with each other and, according to their priority in the candidate set, one of them acts as the actual relay node, and transmits the packet one hop closer to its destination [3]. Finally, in the third phase, if none of the candidates receives a copy of the propagated packet, the sender node will retransmit it for a specific number of attempts; otherwise, it is discarded.

OR protocols assist in creating more reliable routing protocols in wireless networks; however, maintaining the security of such protocols is a considerable challenge. Generally, all of the traditional as well as opportunistic routing protocols operate with the assumption that all network nodes behave cooperatively. However, in realistic scenarios, the situation is different, due to the fact that some nodes may be reluctant to collaborate with others. It is worth noting that packet transmission is an energy-consuming operation; therefore, some nodes might refuse to act as an intermediate hop in order to conserve their energy and prolong their lifetime. Furthermore, some peers may be compromised and attempt to attack the network with the purpose of decreasing its performance [4]. In OR protocols, although including a higher number of nodes in the candidate set increases the reliability of routing, the probability of selecting a malicious candidate also increases. Therefore, OR protocols are more vulnerable to routing attacks compared to traditional routing protocols. The results of work published in [5] showed how severely malicious nodes can affect different performance parameters of OR protocols.

Although plenty of research has been performed in the past few years to improve the security of traditional routing protocols, specific features of OR protocols necessitate the design of novel security solutions, customized for such protocols. In this paper, we propose an analytical packet salvaging model using Discrete-Time Markov–Chain (DTMC) for wireless mesh networks. The introduced model enables nodes in the candidate set to collaborate with each other with greater sophistication, and to save some of the packets that are maliciously dropped or manipulated by attackers. Furthermore, in addition to the proposal of a novel approach to calculate different network parameters including delivery ratio, drop ratio, expected number of transmissions (ETX), and hop count specifically for the proposed model, two new parameters are introduced, known as direct-delivery ratio and salvage ratio. A comprehensive set of performance evaluation experiments is also conducted, reported, and analyzed. Some of the most important contributions of this paper are as follows.

  • A novel DTMC-based packet salvaging model is proposed, designed, and implemented, enabling candidate nodes to save some of the packets dropped by malicious nodes.

  • Using the proposed model, a new approach is introduced that calculates different network parameters such as the probability of packet delivery, drop ratio, expected number of transmissions (ETX), and hop count.

  • Two novel parameters are introduced and calculated from the proposed analytical model, known as packet salvage ratio and direct delivery ratio.

  • The proposed model is applied to a well-known OR protocol, using the proposed analytical approach, as well as the use of network simulation. Finally, a comprehensive set of evaluations is conducted considering different parameters, and evaluation results are reported.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 includes a brief overview of the related works on OR protocols and secure routing in wireless networks. Section 3 introduces the proposed packet salvaging model. A comprehensive performance evaluation study is presented in Section 4 and, finally, Section 5 concludes the paper.

Section snippets

Related works

Since this paper introduces a new packet salvaging model to nullify the effects of malicious nodes in OR protocols, it is important to review the recent research in the fields of OR protocols and secure routing in wireless networks. As follows in this section, we review some of the most significant research findings in relevant fields.

A DTMC-based packet salvaging model for OR

As discussed in Section 1, the main advantage of OR protocols is the redundancy of nodes in the candidate set. In hostile environments, however, including a higher number of nodes in the candidate set will result in a higher risk of selecting malicious nodes in the candidate set. In this situation, as shown in [5], malicious nodes can significantly decrease the performance of OR protocols. To defend against attackers, we propose a packet salvaging mechanism through which nodes in the candidate

Performance analysis

This section includes a performance evaluation on the proposed model. For evaluation purposes, the introduced analytical model has been implemented using Java programming language. Furthermore, experiments have also been performed using network simulation. Network simulator (ns-2.35) [34] has been used as the simulation tool. Performing experiments, both analytically and using simulation, provides the possibility of comparing and verifying obtained results. In addition, all results are

Conclusion

Opportunistic Routing (OR) protocols propose routing packets to their destination by selecting a set of nodes that collaboratively progress data packets. In this paper, we introduced a novel packet salvaging mechanism that benefits from the redundancy of nodes involved in each hop of OR protocols. The proposed model represented how benign nodes in the set of candidates can collaborate with each other, and salvage data packets that are maliciously dropped or manipulated by attacker nodes. The

Acknowledgments

This work is partially supported by NSERC, The Canada Research Chair program, ORF funds, and EAR Research Award.

Mr. Mahmood Salehi obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Computer Engineering (Software) in 2003 and 2006. After that, he worked as a lecturer at Islamic Azad University, Iran from 2006 to 2012. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Ottawa, Canada and studies under the supervision of Professor Azzedine Boukerche as a member of PARADISE research group. His main areas of research interest consist of opportunistic routing,

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    Mr. Mahmood Salehi obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Computer Engineering (Software) in 2003 and 2006. After that, he worked as a lecturer at Islamic Azad University, Iran from 2006 to 2012. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Ottawa, Canada and studies under the supervision of Professor Azzedine Boukerche as a member of PARADISE research group. His main areas of research interest consist of opportunistic routing, trust management, security, and data gathering in wireless sensor/mesh networks and mobile/vehicular ad hoc networks.

    Azzedine Boukerche (FIEEE, FEiC, FCAE, FAAAS) is a full professor and holds a Canada Research Chair position at the University of Ottawa (Ottawa). He is the founding director of the PARADISE Research Laboratory, School of Information Technology and Engineering (SITE), Ottawa. Prior to this, he held a faculty position at the University of North Texas, and he was a senior scientist at the Simulation Sciences Division, Metron Corp., San Diego. He was also employed as a faculty member in the School of Computer Science, McGill University, and taught at the Polytechnic of Montreal. He spent a year at the JPL/NASA-California Institute of Technology, where he contributed to a project centered about the specification and verification of the software used to control interplanetary spacecraft operated by JPL/NASA Laboratory. His current research interests include wireless ad hoc, vehicular, and sensor networks, mobile and pervasive computing, wireless multimedia, QoS service provisioning, performance evaluation and modeling of large-scale distributed systems, distributed computing, large-scale distributed interactive simulation, and parallel discrete-event simulation. He has published several research papers in these areas. He served as a guest editor for the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing (special issue for routing for mobile ad hoc, special issue for wireless communication and mobile computing, and special issue for mobile ad hoc networking and computing), ACM/Kluwer Wireless Networks, ACM/Kluwer Mobile Networks Applications, and Journal of Wireless Communication and Mobile Computing. He has been serving as an Associate Editor of ACM Computing Surveys, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed systems, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Elsevier Ad Hoc Networks, Wiley International Journal of Wireless Communication and Mobile Computing, Wiley’s Security and Communication Network Journal, Elsevier Pervasive and Mobile Computing Journal, IEEE Wireless Communication Magazine, Elsevier’s Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, and SCS Transactions on Simulation. He was the recipient of the Best Research Paper Award at IEEE/ACM PADS 1997, ACM MobiWac 2006, ICC 2008, ICC 2009 and IWCMC 2009, and the recipient of the Third National Award for Telecommunication Software in 1999 for his work on a distributed security systems on mobile phone operations. He has been nominated for the Best Paper Award at the IEEE/ACM PADS 1999 and ACM MSWiM 2001. He is a recipient of an Ontario Early Research Excellence Award (previously known as Premier of Ontario Research Excellence Award), Ontario Distinguished Researcher Award, Glinski Research Excellence Award, IEEE CS Golden Core Award, IEEE Canada Gotlieb Medal Award, IEEE ComSoc Expectional Leadership Award, IEEE TCPP Exceptional Leadership Award. He is a co-founder of the QShine International Conference on Quality of Service for Wireless/Wired Heterogeneous Networks (QShine 2004). He served as the general chair for the Eighth ACM/IEEE Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Wireless and Mobile Systems, and the Ninth ACM/IEEE Symposium on Distributed Simulation and Real-Time Application (DS-RT), the program chair for the ACM Workshop on QoS and Security for Wireless and Mobile Networks, ACM/IFIPS Europar 2002 Conference, IEEE/SCS Annual Simulation Symposium (ANNS 2002), ACM WWW 2002, IEEE MWCN 2002, IEEE/ACM MASCOTS 2002, IEEE Wireless Local Networks WLN 03–04; IEEE WMAN 04–05, and ACM MSWiM 98–99, and a TPC member of numerous IEEE and ACM sponsored conferences. He served as the vice general chair for the Third IEEE Distributed Computing for Sensor Networks (DCOSS) Conference in 2007, as the program co-chair for GLOBECOM 2007–2008 Symposium on Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks, and for the 14th IEEE ISCC 2009 Symposium on Computer and Communication Symposium, and as the finance chair for ACM Multimedia 2008. He also serves as a Steering Committee chair for the ACM Modeling, Analysis and Simulation for Wireless and Mobile Systems Conference, the ACM Symposium on Performance Evaluation of Wireless Ad Hoc, Sensor, and Ubiquitous Networks, and IEEE/ACM DS-RT.

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