Enhancing security features & performance of AODV protocol under attack for MANET

In this paper, a novel security mechanism is presented to enhance security & performance of AODV (Adhoc On-demand Distance Vector) routing protocol under the attack for MANET (Mobile Ad-hoc Networks). The AODV routing protocol was initially developed without considering security in mind. So it is not able to defend against any kind of security attack. But there are many security mechanisms available that make AODV secure. However, by doing more research in this area, one major flaw in any of the existing secure routing protocols was discovered. That is security mechanisms that are available consume more processing power and required complex key-management system. Here, we present a novel security mechanism that integrates digital signature and hash chain to protect the AODV routing protocol that is capable of defending itself against both malicious and unauthenticated nodes with marginal performance difference. The proposed security mechanism was also simulated in the Network Simulator 2 (NS2) to show marginal performance difference under attack.