Using honeynodes for defense against jamming attacks in wireless infrastructure-based networks

The advent of wireless networks has brought a new set of security issues with it. One of the most feared of these is the jamming-based attacks. In this paper, we propose a pre-emptive detection strategy using honeynodes and a response mechanism based on the existing Channel Surfing Algorithm [Xu W, Trappe W, Zhang Y, Wood T. Channel surfing and spatial retreats: defenses against wireless denial of service. ACM Wireless Security 2004;80-9] to protect wireless nodes from a jammer. Honeynodes generate dummy communication at a frequency close to the actual frequency of operation, and pre-emptively alert authentic nodes of imminent attacks, so that the authentic nodes can jump to another frequency even before a jammer starts scanning that frequency. The next frequency is selected using a novel approach which uses a hybrid of reactive and proactive channel selection procedures. We have simulated the proposed approach using NS-2. The experimental results further prove a marked improvement in the performance of the proposed system over the Channel Surfing Algorithm in terms of the packet delivery ratio, the jammed duration, control message overhead and the number of channel re-configurations.