A Survey on Intrusion Detection in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

In recent years, the use of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) has been widespread in many applications, including some mission critical applications, and as such security has become one of the major concerns in MANETs. Due to some unique characteristics of MANETs, prevention methods alone are not sufficient to make them secure; therefore, detection should be added as another defense before an attacker can breach the system. In general, the intrusion detection techniques for traditional wireless networks are not well suited for MANETs. In this paper, we classify the architectures for intrusion detection systems (IDS) that have been introduced for MANETs. Current IDS’s corresponding to those architectures are also reviewed and compared. We then provide some directions for future research.