International Journal of Research in Advanced Technology - IJORAT

Vol. 1, Issue 6, JUNE 2016

ENERGY EFFICIENT TECHNIQUE FOR

DEFENSE AGAINST BLACK HOLE
ATTACKS IN WIRELESS SENSOR
NETWORKS
A. Babu Karuppiah1, R.Suganya2
1,2

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering ,

Velammal College of Engineering and Technology,
Madurai, India

Abstract: In a Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), energy consumption is a key challenge due to its dynamic
topology and resource constraint sensors. It uses the wireless connection to be configured with the network
security is the main concern in the network communication. Because of its special characteristics, it becomes
more susceptible to attacks. It has dynamic topology, so that any node engaging in the network connection can
join and leave at anytime. Due to the nature of this topology, the network will be overwhelmed by various
security threats. In this paper we have discussed about the black hole attack. One of the common security
attack resembles on the Wireless Sensor Network is the black hole attack in which the packets are consumed by
the malicious nodes which is very crucial to detect and prevent. Black hole attack is also called as packet
dropping attack or network layer attack. It is one of denial of service (DOS) attack. Due to this type of black
hole attack, most of the packet gets discarded without reaching the destination. Due to the presence of black
hole attacks the network performance gets degraded to an extent. In this paper, we will see how to implement
the black hole attack in AODV routing protocol and modified AODV (MAODV) routing protocol. Here the
trust based energy efficient secure routing protocol is proposed to mitigate the presence of black hole attacks
and it gets simulated using ns-3.21 and the simulation results are discussed. The parameter investigated in this
paper is to reduce the power consumption using ns-3.21 simulator without degrading its performance.
Keywords: MANET (Mobile Ad-hoc Network), AODV (Ad-hoc On Demand Distance Vector Routing), MAODV,
Black hole, NS3, RREQ, RREP

I.INTRODUCTION

In this type of attack the black holes are termed as

the intruders or the malicious nodes which will be
participating in the network communication without any
authority and is tends to eavesdrop the data and it never
forwards the packets to the destination [4]. This type of
attack is also called as sequence number attack.

Wireless networks are more vulnerable to attacks

and now most of the applications are working based on
wireless. The encountered disadvantages in mobile ad-hoc
networks are its bandwidth limitation, more processing,
memory overhead and open to environment. In Mobile AdIn this paper, we are going to simulate the impact
hoc Networks, the node operates based on the information
of black hole attack in Mobile ad-hoc Network using Adthat is to be trusted by the neighbor nodes.
hoc On Demand Distance Vector routing protocol [10].
The overall working depends on the cooperation
AODV protocol is chosen because it performs
between the neighboring nodes and trust information
much
better
than the other routing protocols even in the
formulated by the node participating in the network.
presence of mobile nodes. Initially we will see the features
Due to its dynamic environment it gets supposed
of the AODV routing protocol and next discussion about
to be affected by various types of security attacks, one of
the overview of black hole attack is to be seen.
the major security attack which is to be investigated in the
To mitigate the presence of black hole holes
MANETs is the black hole attack, it is one type of denial
attacks, Modified Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector
of service attack. It is also called as network layer attack
routing protocol (MAODV) is used [8].
[11].

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Vol. 1, Issue 6, JUNE 2016

Trust model is used in this paper to detect the

malicious nodes easily. Trust value is calculated as the
ratio of number of packets received to the number of
packets sent. Trust values ranges between 0 and 1. Here the
trust values for all nodes are calculated and the median
value is selected as threshold. If the trust value is greater
than or equal to the threshold value, then it forwards the
packets to the next node. By using this technique, the
malicious nodes can be easily removed from the network
[3].
Trust based secure routing protocol is used in this
work; it performs better when compared to other existing
routing protocols like AODV and modified AODV. It
initially used to verify the energy consumption of nodes
participating in the network communication. The source
sends the route request message to the nodes which having
the maximum available energy. The route reply from the
particular nodes gets received by the source, it immediately
checks the trust value in the RREP field and it compares it
with the threshold value. If it is greater than the threshold
value, the source used to broadcasts the packets to that node
and finally it will reach the destination, otherwise it will
discard that node by dropping it from the network. It gives
higher throughput, packet delivery ratio and less End to End
delay [13].
In further sections we will discuss about the
simulation of black hole attack in MANET using AODV
and trust based energy efficient secure routing protocol in
ns3.21 simulator and the simulation results were done.

II. ROUTING PROTOCOL TYPES

A. Ad-hoc On Demand Distance Vector Routing

Ad-hoc On Demand Distance Vector routing
protocol (AODV) is one type of reactive routing protocol
which is extensively used for Mobile ad-hoc networks. It
uses the property of the DSDV protocol. It is used to
advertise the control messages like RREP, RREQ, RERR
and HELLO.
It initially broadcasts HELLO messages to inform
the neighborhood connectivity. This is an on demand
routing protocol, which finds the routes to the destination
only when the source request to forward the packets to the
destination.
AODV initially checks its routing table, if any
routes founds to be available with shortest path, then it uses
it otherwise it starts Route discovery process. It sends single
route request and receives multiple route replies from all
the nodes, the intermediate nodes also able to transmit route
replies to the source.
Each node in the AODV routing protocol
overhears the neighbor node in the network. It has two
phases,
1. Route discovery
2. Route Maintenance
Case I: Route discovery:

If the desired routing path is not accessible in the

Routing protocols play a vital role in forwarding
destination, then routing discovery process starts by
packets from source to destination. Routing protocols are
broadcasting the control packets. The control packets are of
of various types, they are as follows
two types, they are
Reactive routing protocol
Route Request packet (RREQ),
Proactive routing protocol
Route Reply packet (RREP)
Hybrid routing protocol
The source node advertises the RREQ packet
Among all these routing protocols, reactive routing including source address, destination address, broadcast id,
protocol is the one which will be efficient for Mobile Ad- number of hop counts, lifetime.
hoc Networks. The reactive routing protocol consists of the
After receiving the route request packet, node
Dynamic Static Routing and Ad-hoc On Demand distance
which
having
the shortest path to the destination node
Vector routing protocols. Due to the dynamic topology of
transmits
the
RREP
packets to the source. If the node sends
MANETs, the routing gets suffered from various types of
attacks. When compared to DSR, AODV performance is RREP packet, it should have the sequence number greater
better in MANET, because its throughput remains good than the sequence number mentioned in the Route Request
packet that has been broadcasted by the source.
even in the presence of mobile nodes.
It initially sends the data to the node from which
In DSR routing protocol when the nodes are
the
first
Route
Reply gets received and it never verifies its
determined with mobility, then performance is very poor
routing table and it chooses the RREP by verifying that the
and throughput gets decreased. Ad-hoc on demand
destination address which is having a higher sequence
Distance Vector routing protocol has high throughput than number and minimum number of hops than the source
any other routing protocols. So the AODV routing protocol node.
is used in this paper.

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Vol. 1, Issue 6, JUNE 2016

Case II: Route maintenance:

When the source sends the data packets to the

malicious node, it will act as a black hole and it is one

If any linkage gets broken then the intermediate

node sends the Route Error (RERR) message to the source. of the intermediate node and eaves drops the data and it
It continuously monitors the links, so that if any link gets never forwards to the destination. Instead it is used to
failed, it can easily detect it. The neighbor nodes are corrupt the data packets and it makes invisible to users.
monitored continuously, and the broken link gets repaired.
It usually have the following features, initially it
sends RREP to source before the other nodes send without
checking the routing table and next is it consumes all data.
Black hole attack commonly present in the AODV routing
protocol.
The black hole node is also called as the intruder
node and the black hole is also known as the packet
dropping attack. It is called so because the behavior of the
black hole node is to overhear the data packets and it
corrupts the packets without any approval. It is an
unauthorized node participating in the wireless network.
As a result, due to the presence of the black hole
attacks, maximum number of packets gets dropped instead
of delivering it to the destination. Because of the
involvement of black hole, the packet delivery ratio gets
reduced and next is the number of lost packets gets
III. TYPES OF BLACK HOLE ATTACKS
increased. It has poor performance on delivery ratio and
Black hole attack is one type of denial of service attack. It throughput.
is of two types, they are as follows,
Fig.1.Flow of messages in AODV

Single black hole attack

Co-operative black hole attack

V.EXISTING METHOD

In AODV routing protocol, if the source node

broadcast the RREQ message and then intermediate nodes
send the RREP messages to the source node without
It is one kind of black hole attack. In the network if only
checking its routing table, so the malicious can be easily
one node is malicious, then it is called as single black hole
present and drops packets.
attack. It can be easily detected when compared to the
multiple black hole attacks in the network.
If the nodes have good cooperation between them, then
there is no chance of the presence of black hole node and
B. Cooperative black hole attack
hence number of dropped packet will be very less. In this
In this type of attack, multiple black holes in a group are paper the Modified Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector
present. It is very difficult to detect and prevent in the routing (MAODV) is proposed. In this
network when compared to single black hole attack.
method, it involves modifying the operation of source
node without altering its operation. The source node
includes two operations, they are as follows
A. Single black hole attack

IV.FEATURES OF BLACK HOLE ATTACK

In this paper, we are going to discuss about single

black hole attack. It is one form of internal black hole
attack, which is the major problem in MANETs. In this
type of attack, a malicious node tends to inform the source

1.
2.

A trust table to store the Route replies with source

address, destination address and trust value
A timer is used to compute the time waited by the
source node to get the Route reply messages.

In this routing protocol, the source node sends the

node that it has the fresh route and shortest path to the Route Request packets to all nodes and it maintains the
destination node by broadcasting the Route Reply packet routing table which consists of trust value. After receiving
without checking the routing table.
the Route replies from all nodes, it compares the trust value
in the Route reply field with the trust value in source node,
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International Journal of Research in Advanced Technology - IJORAT

Vol. 1, Issue 6, JUNE 2016

if trust value in RREP is greater than source node trust

VI.PROPOSED METHOD
value it forwards the packets to the destination, otherwise it
In order to achieve energy efficiency in WSNs, an
detects the presence of malicious node and discards the efficient and trust based secure protocol is proposed to
packet.
defend against single and cooperative Gray-Hole and Black
Hole attacks. A proposed protocol incorporates efficient
The node in the network checks the neighborhood estimation to determine honest nodes during packets
node is behaving well or not depending on the number of transmission phase. A proposed energy efficient technique
packets transmitted to other nodes, if it detects the is builds to evaluate in detecting and preventing
neighborhood node not transmitting any data, then it compromised node. It is used to find out the malicious
nodes at initial stage itself, so it has no complexity. It
decrements the trust value of that node and it removes that
efficiently reduces possibility of compromised node to be a
node from the routing table. If the node receives the data part of network communication. The algorithm is as
from the neighborhood node, then it increments the trust follows,
value of that node.
Algorithm
1. Select Maximum Energy Node as source node in first
By the use of this Modified Ad hoc On-demand Round of selection.
Distance Vector routing protocol, the presence black hole 2. Source node broadcasts RREQ packet to the maximum
attacks (or) malicious node can be easily detected and then energy node.
it is used to protect the network from it by removing this 3. Intermediate node receives RREP packet, Route
information entry.
particular node from the routing table and thereby
4. IF
decreasing the number of lost packets.
Received timestamp of RREP by Intermediate node < Trust
factor of Gray hole node
Make current Intermediate node as Gray-Hole attacked
node.
OR
SeqNo. Of Intermediate node > Trust factor of Black hole
node, make current Intermediate node as
Black-Hole attacked node.
ELSE
Route Data Packets to Intermediate node.
In figure 2, the work flow of existing method has
Current_Intermediate node = Next hop node
been depicted .
5. IF Intermediate node is found Compromised Node,
Broadcast Further RREQ from source node to Next hop
nodes.
6. Receive Further RREP and Route information entry of
requested Next hop node.
7. IF Next hop node is not malicious
Route data packets to selected Next hop node.
8. Next hop node = Source node.
9. Repeat from step 1 while Next hop node is not
Destination node.
By using this proposed method, we can
significantly decrease the power consumption and the
lifetime can be extended more when compared to the
existing Modified AODV routing protocol.
So the throughput and the packet delivery ratio can
be increased. It performs better than the normal Ad hoc Ondemand Distance Vector routing protocol. But it broadcasts
more number of RREQs and RREPs. So it consumes more
amount of energy and finally it decreases the network
lifetime.

VII.SIMULATION RESULTS
By using this Trust based energy efficient secure
routing protocol, the energy consumption gets reduced. The
simulation is done using Ns-3.21 simulator.
A.1 Energy consumption

Fig.2. Block diagram for existing methodology

All Rights Reserved 2016 IJORAT

It describes the comparison between Modified

AODV and Trust based energy efficient secure routing
protocol. When compared to the existing Modified AODV,
the proposed method reduces the energy consumption to an
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Vol. 1, Issue 6, JUNE 2016

extent and finally the network lifetime gets increased. The

proposed method is used to provide better performance than
the existing method.
In fig.3 the comparison graph between existing
and proposed method is shown. In this below figure, the
Modified AODV routing protocol consumes more power
for each 0.5 seconds when compared to the proposed
method.

Fig.5. Network Animator output

In the above figure, the node 0 acts as the source

node and the node 4 is the destination node. The source
node sends the route request (RREQ) messages to all the
nodes in the network connection. The route reply (RREP)
messages are by the respective nodes. The source node
selects the RREP message from node 5, and it rejects the
RREP message from node 4, because node 4 is the
malicious node.

VII.CONCLUSION
A malicious node can reduce the ratio of end to
end delivery. We propose an energy efficient and simple
approach for defending the Modified AODV protocol
against Black Hole attacks. The Proposed method can be
A.2 Identification of malicious node
used to find the secured routes and prevent the black hole
The simulation is done using Ns-3.21 simulator. nodes in the Wireless Sensor Networks by maintaining the
trust value and selecting the higher energy node.
The malicious node is identified and it is shown in fig.4.
The trust value for each node gets computed
periodically by monitoring the transmission between nodes.
In addition, the proposed solution may be used to maintain
the identity of the malicious nodes and rejects it from
routing table. By using this method, the energy
consumption gets decreased.
Fig.3.Energy consumption comparison

REFERENCES

Fig.4. Identification of malicious node

In the above figure, there are five nodes and in

that network communication node 4 is the malicious node.
The malicious node is identified and gets removed from the
network.
A.3 Network Animator output
The network animator output consists of five
nodes. It is shown in fig.5.

All Rights Reserved 2016 IJORAT

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