Trusted Source Routing in Wireless Mesh Networks
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Solution Overview
Problem
Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) and Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocols in wireless mesh networks are vulnerable to attacks such as malicious nodes injecting bogus routing information, formation of feedback loops, identity spoofing, and replay attacks, leading to non-optimized and non-secure path selection.
Innovation Solution
Implementing attestation methods within the DSR and OLSR protocols to establish trust between nodes by embedding attestation information, such as hardware fingerprints and trust indicators, into route request and reply packets, and topology control messages to verify the integrity of mesh routers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional source routing protocols (DSR/OLSR) are used in wireless mesh networks, then routing simplicity and basic functionality are maintained, but the network becomes vulnerable to security attacks including bogus routing information injection, feedback loops, identity spoofing, and replay attacks
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by performing attestation of mesh routers before routing decisions are made. Each mesh router undergoes attestation to generate trust indicators in advance, which are then embedded in routing packets. This pre-verification approach ensures security without adding complex real-time verification logic during routing operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces trust indicators as an intermediary element between traditional routing protocols and security verification. These trust indicators, generated through attestation processes, mediate the interaction between routing decisions and security requirements, allowing the existing DSR/OLSR protocols to maintain functionality while incorporating security verification.
2Reliability
If attestation methods are integrated into source routing protocols to verify mesh router trustworthiness, then routing security and path optimization are improved, but the complexity of packet processing and route selection increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges trust indicator verification with the existing route selection process in DSR/OLSR protocols. Instead of creating a separate verification layer, the attestation results are embedded directly into routing packets and evaluated during the same packet processing and route selection operations that already exist in traditional protocols, thereby avoiding duplicate processing overhead.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by making trust verification decisions at each individual hop and route segment rather than requiring global verification of entire paths. Each mesh router's trust indicator is evaluated locally when routing packets pass through it, allowing incremental security verification that reduces overall processing complexity compared to verifying complete end-to-end paths simultaneously.
3Reliability
If trust indicators are embedded in all routing packets to indicate compromised or trusted mesh routers, then the network can identify and exclude malicious nodes, but the size and processing overhead of routing packets increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential trust indicator information from comprehensive attestation results and embeds only this condensed security metadata into routing packets. Rather than including full attestation reports or detailed verification data, the solution extracts and transmits only the critical trust status information needed for routing decisions, minimizing packet size overhead while maintaining security verification capability.
Data Source
AI summary
A method is performed by a destination node connected to wireless mesh routers configured to implement a source routing protocol in which the mesh routers propagate route request packets broadcasted by a source node to the destination node, the mesh routers add their addresses to accumulated paths in the route request packets, and add to the accumulated paths trust indicators that indicate whether mesh routers among the mesh routers from previous hops along the accumulated paths are trusted or compromised. The destination node receives the route request packets which convey the accumulated paths. The destination node determines trusted paths among the accumulated paths for which all of the mesh routers along the accumulated paths are trusted based on the trust indicators for the accumulated paths. The destination node determines a preferred path among the trusted paths, and forwards an indication of the preferred path to the source node.