Simulation of 802.11 Physical Layer Attacks in MANET

Researchers have focused on security aspects of different Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) protocols to prevent Physical Layer attacks through different complex mechanisms. DoS attacks are one of the most harmful attacks against functionality and stability of network systems. MANETs are more vulnerable to Physical Layer attacks due to limited resources that force them to be greedy in resource utilization. Physical layer attacks aims to paralyze the member of the network (a node or service provider) or the entire network, by flooding excessive volume of traffic to consume the key resources of the member of the network or the entire network. In this research, OPNET simulation package is used to simulate different DoS attack scenarios for popular MANET protocol, Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocol. The results and performance comparisons of MANET protocol is illustrated through performance metrics.