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Detect Sybil Attacks in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
Mouloud Demouche, Abderrahmane Baadache, Djamil Aissani and Taha Zerrouki

A wireless networking system is a set of nodes that communicate using an open and shared wireless communication medium. The authentication and veracity of identities in such a system are a real challenge due mainly to the lack of a certification authority. In this paper, we focus on the Sybil attack, where the malicious node uses several identities in order to inhibit the expected functions of the network. We rely on the ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography) coupled with a challenge and the RSS (Received Signal Strength) reading to cope with insider and outsider forms of this attack. The ECC is used to mitigate outsider attacks, while the challenge and the RSS are used to cope with insider attacks. The idea is to send a specific challenge to each of your neighbors who have the same RSS. The challenge is expected to be resolved within a specified delay, not exceeding a predefined threshold. The identities of neighbors who fail to return the result within the deadline are Sybil’s identities. Unlike similar works, the security scheme we propose is a lightweight one, GPS-free, and can be used in both static and mobile wireless networks. According to simulation results, our security scheme behaves well and records a high detection rate.

Keywords: wireless networking, ECC, challenge, RSS, Sybil