Trust Based Security in MANET Routing Protocols: A Survey

Ad-hoc networks establish communication in improvised environments without requiring any fixed infrastructure. These networks are inherently prone to security attacks, with node mobility being the primary cause in allowing security breaches. Therefore, it is required that the nodes cooperate for the integrity of network operation. However, nodes may refuse to cooperate by not forwarding packets to others for selfish reasons and/or not wanting to exhaust their resources. Due to high mobility of nodes in the network, detecting misbehavior is a complex problem. Nodes have to share routing information in order for each to fmd the route to the destination. This requires nodes to trust each other. Thus we can state that trust is a key concept in secure routing mechanisms. This paper provides a survey of the work done in this field.