Secure multipath routing and data transmission in MANET

In mobile ad hoc network (MANET), providing security during multipath routing protocol and during the data transmission with multiple routes is a challenging task. For this, in this paper, we propose a secure multipath routing and data transmission in which RREQ packets are signed using digital signatures (Vaidya and Lim, 2009) for route discovery. When the destination receives first RREQ packets from the node, the destination verifies all the signatures and caches the route list by the session key of source node. Then, it sends the RREP via the same path to source node. If the signature is verified, then the path will be accepted. At the source node, the message parts are encrypted using session keys and hash function. Based on the trust level of the nodes, secure routing can be performed. An algorithm was used to choose an optimal secure routing path. The messages are then fragmented into four parts, soft encrypted and performed XOR operations. Finally, the destination node decrypts and recovers the original message. Simulation result show that the proposed approach can improves the packet delivery ratio with reduced delay, packet drop, and resilience.