Mac layer misbehaviors in mobile ad hoc networks

MAC misbehavior in mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) is relatively new and unexplored in the literature. Different from traditional wireline networks, the unique nature of MANETs has opened new challenges in the network design. An Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of wireless mobile hosts forming a temporary network without the aid of any established infrastructure or centralized administration. In such an environment, one mobile host may need the aid of other hosts to communicate with the destination. However, failed data transmission due to selfish or malicious or hybrid node misbehavior and faulty nodes can severely degrade the overall network performance. Hence, a well-behaved node needs to adaptively change its cooperation level to cope with node misbehavior. In this thesis, we first briefly overview the existing security issues in ad hoc network routing and MAC layers. We explain security methods such as economic incentives, secure routing by cryptography and detection system against greedy behavior alleviate some of the problems, but not all