Contradiction Based Gray-Hole Attack Minimization for Ad-Hoc Networks

Although quite popular for the protection for ad-hoc networks (MANETs, IoT, VANETs, etc.), detection & mitigation techniques only function after the attack has commenced. Prevention, however, attempts at thwarting an attack before it is executed. Both techniques can be realized either by the collective collaboration of network nodes (i.e., adding security messages to protocols) or by internal deduction of attack state. In this paper, we propose a method for minimizing the gray-hole DoS attack. Our solution assumes no explicit node collaboration, with each node using only internal knowledge gained by routine routing information. The technique was evaluated using five different threat models (different attacker capabilities), allowing for a better understanding of the attack surface and its prevention. Our simulation results show a decrease of up to 51 percent in previously dropped packet, greatly minimizing gray-hole attack effectiveness.