MATF: a multi-attribute trust framework for MANETs

To enhance the mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) security, various trust-based security schemes have been proposed. However, in most of the trust-based security schemes, a node’s trust is computed based on a single trust attribute criteria, such as data forwarding. Using single trust attribute criteria may cause the bootstrapping problem, which refers to the time required by the trust-based scheme to build trust and reputation among nodes in the network. The bootstrapping problem in these schemes may provide more opportunities to misbehaving nodes to drop packets and remain undetected for longer time in the network. Moreover, using single trust attribute criteria does not effectively deal with the selective misbehavior by a smart malicious node.