Accurate detection of black holes in MANETs using collaborative bayesian watchdogs

Watchdogs are a well-known mechanism to detect threats and attacks from misbehaved and selfish nodes in computer networks. This paper proposes a collaborative approach for detecting black holes and selfish nodes in MANETs, using a set of bayesian watchdogs which collaborate to enhance their individual and collective performance. To evaluate the performance of this approach, we first introduce an analytical model. The results of this model reveal that the detection time of misbehaved nodes is reduced, and the impact of false positives and false negatives is minimised (that is, the overall accuracy is increased). These results are confirmed in the simulation results that follow. The collaborative bayesian watchdog performs better in terms of accuracy and speed detection than the standard bayesian watchdog.