Verifying physical presence of neighbors against replay-based attacks in wireless ad hoc networks

Abstract

Verifying physical presence of a neighbor in wireless ad hoc networks is one of the key components in developing protocols resilient to replay-based attacks. For this, we first consider RTT-based and power-based approaches. We then couple them to design an effective neighbor verification protocol (NVP). In theory, we always see some room for replay-based attacks. However, our proposed protocol significantly limits the effectiveness of replay-based attacks by restricting the range where they might be launched and thus makes them practically impossible.