In this work we study the problem of misbehavior detection in wireless networks. A commonly adopted approach is to utilize the broadcasting nature of the wireless medium and have nodes monitor their neighborhood. We call such nodes the Watchdogs. In this paper, we first show that even if a watchdog can overhear all packet transmissions of a flow, any linear operation of the overheard packets can not eliminate miss-detection and is inefficient in terms of bandwidth. We propose a light-weigh misbehavior detection scheme which integrates the idea of watchdogs and error detection coding. We show that even if the watchdog can only observe a fraction of packets, by choosing the encoder properly, an attacker will be detected with high probability while achieving throughput arbitrarily close to optimal. Such properties reduce the incentive for the attacker to attack.
Network coding substantially increases network throughput. But since it involves mixing of information inside the network, a single corrupted packet generated by a malicious node can end up contaminating all the information reaching a destination, preventing decoding. This paper introduces the first distributed polynomial-time rate-optimal network codes that work in the presence of Byzantine nodes. We present algorithms that target adversaries with different attacking capabilities. When the adversary can eavesdrop on all links and jam zO links , our first algorithm achieves a rate of C - 2zO, where C is the network capacity. In contrast, when the adversary has limited snooping capabilities, we provide algorithms that achieve the higher rate of C - zO. Our algorithms attain the optimal rate given the strength of the adversary. They are information-theoretically secure. They operate in a distributed manner, assume no knowledge of the topology, and can be designed and implemented in polynomial-time. Furthermore, only the source and destination need to be modified; non-malicious nodes inside the network are oblivious to the presence of adversaries and implement a classical distributed network code. Finally, our algorithms work over wired and wireless networks.  Distributed randomized network coding, a robust approach to multicasting in distributed network settings, can be extended to provide Byzantine modification detection without the use of cryptographic functions is presented in this paper. Recent research has shown that network coding can be used in content distribution systems to improve the speed of downloads and the robustness of the systems. However, such systems are very vulnerable to attacks by malicious nodes, and we need to have a signature scheme that allows nodes to check the validity of a packet without decoding. In this paper, we propose such a signature scheme for network coding. Our scheme makes use of the linearity property of the packets in a coded system, and allows nodes to check the integrity of the packets received easily. We show that the proposed scheme is secure, and its overhead is negligible for large files.    Recent studies show that network coding can provide significant benefits to network protocols, such as increased throughput, reduced network congestion, higher reliability, and lower power consumption. The core principle of network coding is that intermediate nodes actively mix input packets to produce output packets. This mixing subjects network coding systems to a severe security threat, known as a , where attacker nodes inject corrupted packets into the network. Corrupted packets propagate in an epidemic manner, depleting network resources and significantly decreasing throughput. Pollution attacks are particularly dangerous in wireless networks, where attackers can easily inject packets or compromise devices due to the increased network vulnerability. In this paper, we address pollution attacks against network coding systems in wireless mesh networks. We demonstrate that previous solutions to the problem are impractical in wireless networks, incurring an unacceptably high degradation of throughput. We propose a lightweight scheme, DART, that uses time-based authentication in combination with random linear transformations to defend against pollution attacks. We further improve system performance and propose EDART, which enhances DART with an optimistic forwarding scheme. A detailed security analysis shows that the probability of a polluted packet passing our verification procedure is very low. Performance results using the well-known MORE protocol and realistic link quality measurements from the Roofnet experimental testbed show that our schemes improve system performance over 20 times compared to previous solutions. Network coding provides the possibility to maximize network throughput and receives various applications in traditional computer networks, wireless sensor networks and peer-to-peer systems. However, the applications built on top of network coding are vulnerable to pollution attacks, in which the compromised forwarders can inject polluted or forged messages into networks. Existing schemes addressing pollution attacks either require an extra secure channel or incur high computation overhead. In this paper, we propose an efficient signature-based scheme to detect and filter pollution attacks for the applications adopting linear network coding techniques. Our scheme exploits a novel homomorphic signature function to enable the source to delegate its signing authority to forwarders, that is, the forwarders can generate the signatures for their output messages without contacting the source. This nice property allows the forwarders to verify the received messages, but prohibit them from creating the valid signatures for polluted or forged ones. Our scheme does not need any extra secure channels, and can provide source authentication and batch verification. Experimental results show that it can improve computation efficiency up to ten times compared to some existing one. In addition, we present an alternate lightweight scheme based on a much simpler linear signature function. This alternate scheme provides a tradeoff between computation efficiency and security.