Cross-Layer Based Anomaly Detection in Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless mesh networking has been a cost-effective technology that provides wide-coverage broadband wireless network services. However, security and privacy in this proliferated network environment have not been widely studied. In this work, we propose a cross-layer based anomaly intrusion detection system (IDS) to accommodate the integrated property of routing protocols with link information in wireless mesh networks (WMNs). An IDS software prototype over a wireless mesh network testbed has been implemented and evaluated. By comparing the performance of the cross-layer approach with that of single-layer based intrusion detection, especially an IDS at network layer, we validate the effectiveness of cross-layer based anomaly detection in WMNs.