Securing AODV Against Black Hole Attack For Wireless Mesh Network

Abstract

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) offer flexible and scalable communication solutions but are vulnerable to various security threats, including black hole attacks. These attacks exploit the reactive nature of routing protocols like the Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV), which is commonly used in WMNs. Black hole attacks disrupt network operations by falsely advertising optimal paths, leading to data packet losses. To address this, we propose a detection mechanism for identifying malicious nodes in AODV-based WMNs. Our approach utilizes destination sequence number comparison and hop count verification to identify inconsistencies caused by black hole nodes. Through simulation and analysis, we demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method, showing its ability to significantly mitigate the impact of black hole attacks on WMNs.