Security for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Security has always been a one of the biggest challenges for wireless local area networks (WLAN) ever since its inception. Plenty of studies have been done on the wireless network security in recent years, but they are mostly focused on the infrastructure based WLAN. The security requirements of wireless ad hoc networks, on the other hand, have been rarely discussed. As meshed wireless technology becomes more and more popular, it's crucial for us to better understand the security impact of wireless ad hoc networks. Wireless ad hoc networks are mostly used for applications such as battlefield communication and emergency responses due to its features of open medium, dynamic network topology and cooperative algorithms. Unfortunately these key characteristics as well as the lack of centralized monitoring and management point make such networks vulnerable to a wide variety of attacks. This book discusses these security concerns unique to wireless ad hoc networks and attempts to explain the potential solutions and their limitations. The book consists of three major parts: cryptography, secure routing and intrusion detection and prevention of wireless ad hoc networks. Anjum and Mouchtaris begin the book with a brief review of the history of wireless ad hoc networks, and a general description of its primary applications and the unique challenges associated with this technology. Chapter 2 - 4 of this book focus on data confidentiality and integrity. Some basic concepts of cryptography such as one-way hash functions and symmetric v.s. asymmetric encryption are discussed in Chapter 2, while Chapter 3 primarily focuses on the different key management schemes. Chapter 4 addresses one of the most important security requirements of wireless ad hoc networks - secure routing. Unlike conventional routing protocols that were created with the goal of establish quick and efficient communications, routing on wireless ad hoc networks has to be secure. In this chapter authors describe some of the most widely used wireless ad hoc routing protocols and ways of securing such protocols. Chapter 5 discusses a variety of intrusion detection mechanisms that can be used for detecting malicious behavior on a wireless ad hoc network. And the following chapter discusses how to mitigate such kind of malicious attacks once they are detected, and how can policy management be used to respond to specific events. Chapter 7 describes how to identify the location of any given node on a wireless ad hoc network, and how to accomplish it securely. The last chapter of the book touches briefly on a different type of application of wireless ad hoc networks - vehicular networks and analyzes its prospect. The key differentiator for this book is that it focuses exclusively on the topic of security for wireless ad hoc networks. Instead of focusing on the technical details, the authors try to provide a general overview of the study and research that has been done in this area and make readers aware of the unique challenges of security of wireless ad hoc networks. Readers with only basic networking background would definitely enjoy the read and benefit from the simplified description of the problems and solutions. On the other hand, researchers and scientists focusing on wireless security would also appreciate authors' broad and comprehensive coverage of the subject.