Modeling and Analysis of Deception Mechanisms for Thwarting Reconnaissance in Tactical MANETs
Abstract
Major Goals: Tactical MANETs of Army consist of wireless nodes, such as ground and aerial vehicles, teams of robots, and sensor nodes. MANETs operate in the absence of supporting infrastructure, requiring nodes to collaborate in order to provide available, reliable and timely data exchange over the mission duration. Deployment of MANETs in hostile battlefield environments makes them vulnerable to attacks by intelligent, persistent adversaries, which may violate the confidentiality and integrity of communications or disrupt the network operation. Designing MANETs to provide secure network services in the presence of such threats is therefore critical to achieving mission goals. Current approaches to securing MANETs involve encrypting and authenticating message traffic between nodes, as well as detecting and responding to intrusions based on observed changes in network performance. These approaches, however, do not protect the network against a stealthy adversary who first carries out network reconnaissance by monitoring the network over an extended period of time, and then uses this information to mount efficient and lethal attacks. A proactive approach to thwarting this network reconnaissance phase is therefore needed. We propose to develop an analytical framework for designing, modeling and analyzing deception mechanisms against reconnaissance in MANETs. Our key insight is that the data gathered by the adversary can be decomposed into information about (i) the nodes, (ii) the network protocols used and (iii) the overall network topology. We then design novel deception mechanisms for each of these components and analyze our mechanisms within a game-theoretic framework. Arising from our decomposition of the information available to an adversary are the following three key thrusts that enable development of deception against reconnaissance in MANETs.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 27, 2015
- Accession Number
- AD1228600
Entities
People
- Radha Poovendran
Organizations
- University of Washington