IMPLEMENTATION & SIMULATION OF WORMHOLE ATTACK ON WIRELESS ADHOC NETWORKS

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the thesis entitled Implementation and Study of the Impact of Wormhole Attack on the performance of Wireless Ad Hoc Networks which has been submitted by Gauhar Arfaat in partial fulfillment for the award of the degree of M.Tech in Communication and Information Technology is a bonafide record of the work done by him under my supervision.

Dr. Ajaz Hussain Mir Professor & HOD Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering National Institute of Technology Srinagar 190006

ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION DEPT. NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

IMPLEMENTATION & SIMULATION OF WORMHOLE ATTACK ON WIRELESS ADHOC NETWORKS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all I would like to thank Almighty Allah for bestowing me with whatever I have. I express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Ajaz Hussain Mir (H.O.D ECE dept.) for his continuous guidance and invaluable suggestions all the time during this research work. I would also like to thank all the faculty of the National Institute of Technology, SGR, the technical knowledge and skills inherited from them are the basis for this thesis. I would like to thank my parents for their love and blessings that support and encouraged me at every movement.

GAUHAR ARFAAT CIT -06-2008

ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION DEPT. NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

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IMPLEMENTATION & SIMULATION OF WORMHOLE ATTACK ON WIRELESS ADHOC NETWORKS

ABSTRACT
As an increasing number of people are going wireless, reducing the vulnerability of wireless networks is becoming a top priority. Ad-hoc or spontaneous wireless networks are threatened by a powerful attack known as the wormhole attack. Wireless networks are susceptible to many attacks, including an attack known as the wormhole attack. The wormhole attack is very powerful and preventing the attack has proven to be difficult. A strategic placement of the wormhole can result in a significant breakdown in communication across a wireless network. The nature of wireless ad hoc and sensor networks make them very attractive to attack. The detailed simulation of the wormhole attack can reflect the strength and nature of the attack. In this thesis we have implemented & simulated the wormhole attack on wireless adhoc networks and MANETs as well. The Wormhole attack was implemented & simulated on different topologies using various scenarios. Thus we studied the impact of the wormhole attack on the respective networks. The parameters like throughput, packet lost and delay were calculated and effects were studied using different scenarios for evaluating the impact on different wireless adhoc networks and MANETs.

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IMPLEMENTATION & SIMULATION OF WORMHOLE ATTACK ON WIRELESS ADHOC NETWORKS

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

Page

INTRODUCTION. .....1 1.1 Wormhole attacks in wireless networks1 1.2 Problem Identification...4 1.3 Problem Statement.5 CHAPTER 2 WIRELESS NETWORKS..6 2.1 Types..6 2.2 Mobile devices networks...7 2.3 Significance of wireless.8 2.4 IEEE 802.11 standard....9 2.5 Wireless ad hoc networks..9 2.5.1 Mobile ad hoc network.11 2.5.2 Types of MANE Ts12 2.6 Wireless mesh network13 2.6.1 Architecture...13 2.6.2 Applications...15 2.6.3 Operation...15 2.6.4 Multi-Radio mesh....16 2.7 Wireless Sensor Networks..16 CHAPTER 3
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IMPLEMENTATION & SIMULATION OF WORMHOLE ATTACK ON WIRELESS ADHOC NETWORKS

WORMHOLE ATTACK- THE STATE OF ART.............................................18 3.1 Classification of wormhole attack...................................................21 3.1.1 Open Wormhole Attack...................................................21 3.1.2 Closed Wormhole Attack.................................................21 3.1.3 Half-Open Wormhole Attack...........................................21 3.2 Wormhole configurations.................................................................21 3.3 Wormhole attack phenomenon.22 3.3.1 In-band and out-of-band wormholes22 3.3.2 Self-contained and extended in-band wormholes.23

3.4 Metrics for a wormhole attack............................................................24 3.4.1 Strength...............................................................................24 3.4.2 Difference between the adversed & actual path length...24 3.4.3 Attraction.............................................................................25 3.4.4 Robustness...........................................................................25 3.5 Wormhole attack modes...25 3.5.1 Wormhole using Encapsulation...26 3.5.2 Wormhole using out-of-band channel.27 3.5.3 Wormhole with High Power Transmission..27 3.5.4 Wormhole using Packet Relay.27 3.5.5 Wormhole using Protocol Deviations..29

3.6 Significance of Wormhole attack.......................................................29

CHAPTER 4 AD-HOC ROUTING PROTOCOLS..30 4.1 Dynamic Source Routing (DSR)30

ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION DEPT. NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

IMPLEMENTATION & SIMULATION OF WORMHOLE ATTACK ON WIRELESS ADHOC NETWORKS

4.1.1 Advantages & Disadvantages...32 4.2. Optimized Link State Routing protocol (OLSR)....32 4.2.1 OLSR v2....33 4.3 Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV)....34 4.3.1 Advantages.34 4.3.2 Disadvantages.34 4.4 Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV).34 4.4.1 Advantages & Disadvantages....37 4.4.2 Security Attributes.................................................................37 4.4.3 Issues in MANETs.....39 4.5 Attacks on ad-hoc wireless networks.40 4.5.1 Types of Attacks......40 4.6 Attacks using Fabrication....41 4.6.1. Resource Consumption Attack...41 4.6.2 Rushing Attack42 4.6.3 Blackhole Attack.42 4.6.4 Gray hole Attack...42 4.6.5 Wormhole Attack....................43 4.6.6 Byzantine Attack.43 4.6.7 Stealth Attack..43 4.6.8 Sybil Attack43 4.6.9 Denial of Service (DOS).44 4.6.10 Impersonation attacks44 4.6.11 Man-in-the-middle attacks.44 4.6.12 Location disclosure attack.44
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IMPLEMENTATION & SIMULATION OF WORMHOLE ATTACK ON WIRELESS ADHOC NETWORKS

CHAPTER 5 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE B-PROTOCOL TO EXHIBIT WORMHOLE BEHAVIOUR..........................................................................................................45 5.1 Network Simulator (NS2)..........................................................................45 5.2 Implementing B Protocol in NS to Simulate Wormhole........................46

CHAPTER 6 SIMULATIONS AND RESULTS 6.1 Simulating to perform wormhole behavior.............................................49 6.2 Examining the trace file..........................................................................58 6.3 Result Analysis........................................................................................59

CHAPTER 7 7.1 Conclusion..............................................................................................60 7.2 Future Work............................................................................................61

APPENDICES Appendix A.....62 Appendix B..63 Appendix C..64

REFERENCES....................................................................................................................67

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IMPLEMENTATION & SIMULATION OF WORMHOLE ATTACK ON WIRELESS ADHOC NETWORKS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: A network under wormhole attack Figure 2: Wormhole attack forming off-channel link Figure 3: IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol Figure 4: Back off mechanism Figure 5: A simple ad-hoc network with three wireless mobile hosts Figure 6: Example of three types of wireless mesh network Figure 7: Sensor network example Figure 8: A Wormhole link Figure 9: Wormhole attacker with small hop counts Figure 10: RREQ discovery broadcast by normal node & wormhole nodes Figure 11: Types of wormhole Figure 12: Central wormhole configuration Figure 13: Cross of death configuration Figure 14: Shows different variations of wormhole attack Figure 15: Wormhole adversed & actual paths Figure 16: Wormhole through packet encapsulation Figure 17: Wormhole through out-of-band channel Figure 18: A wormhole created by node X Figure 19: A longer wormhole created by two colluding nodes Figure 20. Categorization of routing protocols

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Figure 21. Route Request Discovery Figure 22. Transferring route error messages Figure 23: NS2 architecture

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Figure 24:Wormhole attack in adhoc wireless networks- (a)Normal link(b) Wormhole link Figure 25: Nam output of 9 node wireless adhoc network without Wormhole attack. Figure 26: Shows wormhole nodes Figure 27: Scenarios showing packet flow from node 5 to node 6 Figure 28: Scenarios showing more drops due wormhole node 1 Figure 29: Shows no more packet flow Figure 30: shows node 2 goes up now and packet flow starts. Figure 31: Scenario showing wormhole link getting down and drops packets. Figure 32: Another scenario showing wormhole link down & drops. Figure 33: Scenario shows node 2 behaving as legitimate node Figure 34: Shows the node 2 set as wormhole node & going down. Figure 35: Another scenario showing wormhole nodes & packet flow Figure 36: Scenario showing packet drops due to wormhole node 2 Figure 37: shows normal data flow via wormhole. Figure 38: shows flow through node 8 going down maliciously. Figure 39: Shows trace file Figure 40: Shows another trace file 50 51 51 52 53 53 54 54 55 55 56 56 57 57 62 62 50

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IMPLEMENTATION & SIMULATION OF WORMHOLE ATTACK ON WIRELESS ADHOC NETWORKS

Figure 41: Xgraph Shows packet loss due to one wormhole node Figure 42: Shows zoomed Xgraph showing packet loss Figure 43: Shows Throughput graph Figure 44: Shows throughput without wormhole attack Figure 45: Shows throughput with wormhole attack Figure 46: Shows packet loss due to wormhole attack Figure 47: Shows packet drops due to wormhole attack Figure 48: Shows end-to-end delay

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IMPLEMENTATION & SIMULATION OF WORMHOLE ATTACK ON WIRELESS ADHOC NETWORKS

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