Trustworthy Wireless Networks: Issues and Applications (Invited Paper)

Wireless networks are susceptible to various attacks due to their open nature of operations. Existing security mechanisms and systems are rarely robust under attacks, misoperation and internal faults. Most of the solutions are targeted to specific attacks and also works after detecting considerable damage and provides little protection if one or more components are compromised. These approaches are not sufficient for holistic and systemic security. In this paper we analyse a more systematic security approach by exploiting the fundamental relationships among the network components. We explore a concept called trust worthy network where nodes establishes relationships among themselves based on the mutual observations and interactions. These relationships will help to derive the level of security and trust to be possessed on the nodes and the message received from the nodes. We analyse in detail the various issues in constructing the trustworthy networks, impact of various network dynamics on the trust relationships and the applications of trust worthiness in assessing the information quality, to evict the misbehaving nodes and to provide other related security services.