Privacy Preserved and Secured Reliable Routing Protocol for Wireless Mesh Networks

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Network Security
• Cryptography

Background:

• Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) face significant privacy and security challenges due to node mobility and open network structures.
• Existing security schemes in WMNs often fall short in providing complete privacy during route discovery.
• WMNs are particularly vulnerable to network layer attacks, necessitating robust protection mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel Privacy preserved and Secured Reliable Routing (PSRR) protocol for WMNs.
• To enhance privacy by ensuring unobservability, unlinkability, and anonymity during route discovery.
• To bolster security against internal attacks and network layer vulnerabilities.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of group signature and ID-based encryption schemes for privacy.
• Introduction of a Cross-Layer and Subject Logic based Dynamic Reputation (CLSL-DR) mechanism for enhanced security.
• Development and simulation of the PSRR protocol for WMNs.

Main Results:

• The proposed PSRR protocol effectively ensures privacy properties like unobservability, unlinkability, and anonymity.
• The CLSL-DR mechanism provides strong protection against various network layer attacks.
• Simulation results demonstrate superior performance of PSRR compared to existing protocols across key parameters.

Conclusions:

• The PSRR protocol offers a comprehensive solution for privacy preservation and security in WMNs.
• The integration of cryptographic techniques and the CLSL-DR mechanism significantly improves network reliability and security.
• The findings highlight the effectiveness of the proposed approach in addressing the unique challenges of WMN security.