Handling New Adversaries in Secure Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks
Abstract
Invariably, new technologies introduce new vulnerabilities which often enable new attacks by increasingly potent adversaries. Yet new systems are more adapt at handling well-known attacks by old adversaries than anticipating new ones. Our adversary models seem to be perpetually out of date: often they do not capture adversary attacks and sometimes they address attacks rendered impractical by new technologies. An immediate consequence of using an out-of-date adversary model with a new technology is that security analysis methods and tools cannot possibly handle the new vulnerabilities thereby leaving users exposed to new attacks. An equally compelling reason for investigating new adversarial capabilities in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETS) is this: without a precise adversary definition the very notion of security becomes undefined. For instance, the fundamental question of "what is the set of threats addressed" by a given secure protocol cannot be answered without an adversary definition. In short, we need to provide (1) a new definition for the new adversary attacks made possible by Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETS), (2) demonstrate that this new definition is more general than the traditional, formal network adversary models (including the classic Dolev-Yao and Byzantine models), (3) illustrate how this new adversary is countered with new practical protocols that operate under realistic performance and cost constraints. Interesting protocols to investigate using the new adversarial definition include those typically used in MANET management, distributed sensing and data fusion, as well as the more traditional authentication protocols for principal and node-to-node authentication.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADP023711
Entities
People
- Virgil D. Gligor
Organizations
- University of Maryland