Abstract—Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANET) are self-organized wireless networks that are becoming progressively popular. Determining an efficient route leading from a source to a specific destination in these networks is an essential issue since nodes are continuously moving. Furthermore, finding a secure route is a difficult area to deal with since adversaries might insert themselves into these routes unless a strict secure routing procedure is implemented. In this paper, a novel scalable secure routing protocol called S-Octopus has been proposed. Via dividing the network area into sectors and utilizing restricted directional flooding, our protocol intents to achieve improved scalability. Moreover, S-Octopus seeks to enhance robustness against the single point of failure and compromise by introducing several Sector Certificate Authority servers. Together with S-Octopus a location service and a misbehavior detection system have been proposed. Using GloMoSim simulator, S-Octopus security and performance have been evaluated and compared with the basic Authenticated Routing for Ad-Hoc Networks (ARAN) as well as Zone-based Authenticated Routing for Ad-Hoc Networks (ARANz). Simulation results assure that S-Octopus is able to effectively initiate and maintain secure routes in MANETs. Results also confirm that S-Octopus has significantly mitigated the scalability problem by achieving the maximum packet delivery fraction and the minimum network and routing loads within fairly large networks with high-mobility nodes and large malicious node percentage. Thus, S-Octopus is a good choice for MANET established among students on a campus or peers at a conference, where keys and certificates might be previously deployed.

Keywords—mobile, scalable, secure, position-based, routing, ad-hoc networks, MANETs, managed-open networks

Cite: Liana K. Qabajeh, "S-Octopus: A Novel Scalable Secure Position-Based Routing Protocol for MANETs," Journal of Communications, vol. 18, no. 7, pp. 398-423, July 2023.

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