A Comparison of Secure Routing Protocols in Ad Hoc Networks

An ad-hoc network is a self-configuring network of nodes (routers and hosts) connected by wireless links. The nodes are free to move randomly, organize themselves arbitrarily and the network's wireless topology may change rapidly and unpredictably. This freedom of routers and hosts to move in and out of the network creates security problems that are not seen in a wired network. This paper compares five proposed secure routing protocols to determine if one is superior to the others. The protocols are compared on availability, confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation. This paper shows that Authenticated Routing for Ad hoc Networks (ARAN) [2] is the best protocol of the five compared.