Authentication Mechanisms for Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks and Resistance to Sybil Attack

In Sybil attack, an attacker acquires multiple identities and uses them simultaneously or one by one to attack various operation of the network. Such attacks pose a serious threat to the security of self-organized networks like mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) that require unique and unchangeable identity per node for detecting routing misbehavior and reliable computation of node´s reputation. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of current authentication mechanism for MANETs in coping with the Sybil attack, the infrastructure requirement posed by these mechanisms and applicability of these mechanisms to different kinds of ad hoc networks. We identify open research issues that need to be addressed by the next generation of authentication mechanisms for MANETs.