This work proposes a new distributed and self-organized authentication scheme for Mobile Ad-hoc NETworks (MANETs). Apart from describing all its components, special emphasis is placed on proving that the proposal fulfils most requirements derived from the special characteristics of MANETs, including limited physical protection of broadcast medium, frequent route changes caused by mobility, and lack of structured hierarchy. Interesting conclusions are obtained from an analysis of simulation experiments in different scenarios.
So far, research on mobile ad hoc networks has been forcused primarily on routing issues. Security, on the other hand, has been given a lower priority. This paper provides an overview of security problems for mobile ad hoc networks, distinguishing the threats on basic mechanisms and on security mechanisms. It then describes our solution to protect the security mechanisms. The original features of this solution include that (i) it is fully decentralized and (ii) all nodes are assigned equivalent roles.