REVIEW OF AUTHENTICATION TECHNIQUES FOR WIRELESS NETWORKS & MANET

Rajni Sobti

Abstract: Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is the most popular area of research nowadays due to its tremendous applications (military battlefield, commercial sectors, disaster areas, collaborative work etc). MANET is self organized network where all nodes are mobile in nature and may act as router as well as host because of its autonomous nature. In such a versatile environment, security of the network becomes a major issue. However, due to dynamic topology of the network and mobility of the nodes, it is very hard to achieve security goals such as confidentiality, authentication, integrity, non repudiation and availability. Among all these security goals, authentication is probably the most complex and important issue in MANET. Before communication, we should know to whom exactly we are talking, and then there is a question of protecting the data by means of cryptography. Authentication deals with identity of sender/receiver which is very important and required aspect for MANET where there is no central administration present in the network. In the present work, the issues related to the authentication in MANET, various techniques of authentication used in Traditional Wireless Network, Cellular Networks and especially in MANET along with their applicability and limitations have been discussed, which need to be addressed carefully before real time application of MANET

Keywords: MANET, Authentication, Traditional Wireless Network (TWN), Threshold Cryptography, Certificate Authority

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2015.0408070