International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 24– No.9, June 2011 34 An Assessment of Frequently Adopted Unsecure Patterns in Mobile Ad hoc Network: Requirement and Security Management Perspective Jayraj Singh Department of Information Technology, B. B. A. University, Raebareli Road, Lucknow Arunesh Singh Department of Information Technology, B. B. A. University, Raebareli Road, Lucknow Raj Shree Department of Information Technology, B. B. A. University, Raebareli Road, Lucknow ABSTRACT A mobile Ad hoc network (MANET) has played an imperative role in making very fast connection of mobile devices without including any centralize equipment. It is the simplest way to transfer files between two or more devices that can also act as routers. Now a day, the appropriate uses of this modern wireless communication are in emergency rescue situation, military scenarios, sensor networks, conferences and many others. Mobile Ad hoc Networks are adopted when wired networks are malfunctioning or broken down due to some unavoidable situation. This rapidly deployed network collaborates without using any preexisting fixed network infrastructure. Due to rapid deployment of mobile nodes or frequent change in network topology, security is the most important concern in Mobile Ad hoc Network. Due to its limited physical security, energy constrained operations and lack of centralized administration; Ad hoc Networks are more vulnerable to attacks than a wired networks or traditional networks. With the proliferation of cheaper, small, and more powerful mobile devices, mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) have become one of the fastest growing areas of research. In this paper we are attempting to analyze the security attacks in Ad-hoc environment and focusing on various areas of security requirement, different types of active and passive attacks in Ad-hoc networks. General Terms Mobile Ad Hoc Network, Security, Secure Routing in MANETs. Keywords Security Goal, Security Attacks 1. INTRODUCTION A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a self-configuring, infrastructure less, multi-hop temporal network of mobile devices connected by wireless links. Each device in a MANET is free to move in arbitrary manner in any direction result in change its links to other devices frequently. The member nodes are themselves responsible for the creation, operation and maintenance of the network. Each node in the MANET is equipped with a wireless transmitter and receiver, with the aid of which it communicates with the other nodes in its wireless vicinity. The nodes which are not in wireless vicinity, communicate with each other hop by hop following a set of rules (routing protocol) [1]. Therefore, Ad hoc networks’ topologies are dynamic and easy to maintain. Thus, apart from the above discussion MANET has several salient characteristics such as dynamic topologies, resource constraints, limited physical security, mobility and multi hop [11]. Since, MANET is self-organizing, fast and easy deployed in non-reachable places across river, mountain or rural areas without fixed infrastructure. Therefore mobile ad hoc network is superior and favorable networks than wired one. However, in MANET there are also some disadvantages like no centralized controller, no infrastructure intrinsic mutual trust, capacity restricted medium etc.. The mobile ad hoc network, is much more vulnerable to attacks than a wired network due to its limited physical security, dynamically changing network topology, energy constrained operations and lack of centralized administration. Since, all the nodes in the network collaborate to forward the data, the wireless channel is prone to active and passive attacks by malicious nodes. These attacks include Denial of Service (DoS) attack, eavesdropping, spoofing, etc. [22] 2. SECURITY GOALS In this section, we are going to introduce the security goals required in MANET. Further we are showing how these goals can be breakdown by different attacks. 2.1 Availability Availability ensures to keep the network service or resources available to legitimate users. It ensures the survivability of the network despite malicious incidents, despite Denial of Service (DOS) attacks [2] [4]. 2.2 Confidentiality Confidentiality is to keep certain information sent is never disclosed or unreadable to unauthorized users. MANET uses an open medium, so usually all nodes within the direct transmission range can obtain the data. One way to keep information Confidential is to encrypt the data [5],[16]. 2.3 Integrity Message being transmitted is never corrupted. a message could be corrupted because of benign failures, such as radio propagation impairment, or because of malicious attacks on the network [2]. 2.4 Authentication Authentication enables a node to ensure the identity of the peer node it is communicating with. Without which an attacker would impersonate a node, thus gaining unauthorized access to resource and sensitive information and interfering with operation of other nodes. There is no central authority in MANET. Due to this, it is much more difficult to authenticate an entity [22] 2.5 Non-repudiation The sender cannot later deny sending the information and the receiver cannot deny the reception. In public key cryptography, a node A signs the message using its private