Collaborative Attacks on MANETs

The security in MANET has become a significant and active topic within the research community. In spite of the several attacks aimed at specific nodes in MANET that have been uncovered, some attacks involving multiple nodes still receive little attention. Furthermore, it may also have to do with the fact that no survey or taxonomy has been done to clarify the characteristics of different multiple node attacks. This thesis addresses the aforementioned gap by providing a proper definition and categorization of collaborative attacks against MANET from the various multiple node attacks found. Simulation using OPNET Modeler was used to investigate the performance impact of a collaborative blackhole attack on a mobile ad hoc network. Network throughput, packet delivery ratio and end-to-end delay are the performance metrics used in our result analysis. Based on the analyses of performance metrics made, we realised the consequences of a collaborative blackhole attack on MANET. In order to prevent or reduce these consequences, we also discuss a number of mitigation plans to counteract the different kinds of collaborative attacks.