2009 IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ISIEA 2009), October 4-6, 2009, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Immune-Inspired Framework for securing Hybrid MANET Yasir Abdelgadir Mohamed Azween B. Abdullah Department of Computer Science and Information Technology Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS Tronoh, MALAYSIA yasir_eym@ieee.org azweenabdullah@petronas.com.my Abstract- A malicious node in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) can falsify a route advertisement, overwhelming traffic without forwarding it, helps in forwarding corrupted data, and injecting of false or uncompleted information. Mapping immune system security mechanisms to networking security can powerfully contribute in securing MANETs, since both are sharing some similar features because of the distributability environment in each. In a step for providing secured and reliable broadband services, formal specification logic along with a novel Immune- inspired security framework (I2MANETs) have been introduced. The different immune components synchronized to the framework through an agent that has the ability to replicate, monitor, detect, classify, and block/isolate the corrupted packets and/or nodes in a federated domain. The framework functions as the Human Immune System in: first response, second response, adaptability, distributability, survivability and other immune features. The I2MANETs can basically installed in one node in the domain, then automatically spread to the rest of the domain. Keywords—Security framework; Immune system; agent I. INTRODUCTION Mobile ad hoc networks (or multihop packet radio networks) consist of mobile nodes that communicate with each other over multihop wireless links. Each node serves as a routing device, which can forward/receive packets to/from its neighbors. MANETs can operate in both isolation or in coordination with a wired infrastructure. Flexibility, self-configurability and easy deployment of mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) are making these networks essential component in future mobile and wireless network architectures. The use of artificial immune systems in solving security problems is an appealing concept for two reasons. Firstly, the human immune system provides the human body with a high level of protection from invading pathogens in a robust, self-organized and distributed manner. Secondly, current techniques used in computer security cannot cope with the dynamic and increasingly complex nature of computer systems and their security [1]. Applying the security architecture can benefit many applications which depend on ad hoc technology such as emergency, health-care systems, groupware, gaming, advertisements, customer - to- customer applications, and military purposes. II. IMMUNE SYSTEM CONCEPT The capability to secure the human body against different attacks comes from the unique feature that enables the immune system to differentiate between the self (cells body) and foreign molecules [2]. Synchronizing different immune properties and techniques to computer systems can help in designing a perfect and robust protection system. Many attempts have been made to map peptide, protein, epitope, receptor, monoclonal lymphocyte, and antibody (B-cell, T-cell) using binary strings and detectors with a variable region of detector string in a computer system [3]. Protecting static data, protecting active processes on a single host, protecting a network of mutually trusting computers, and protecting a network of persistent trusted computers are some of the possible outcomes of securing the systems. Constructing security mechanisms for mobile ad hoc networks are challenged with the lack of resources, decentralization, mobility, and distributability [4]. Due to unique characteristics of mobile ad hoc networks, nontrivial challenges could be posed to security design. These challenges clearly make a case for building distributed security solution that achieves both broad protection and desirable network performance. Attacks against routing protocols that aim at exhausting resources of other nodes in the MANET, cooperative attacks where malicious nodes cooperate with other to cause harm, are some of the MANETs vulnerabilities. The framework in this paper is expected to contribute to the current state of the art in the security field by presenting an extra mechanism to securing mobile ad hoc networks. Auto detection, memory cells, self node blocking, and self-healing are some of the expected properties that the framework can incorporate. Definitely, this is not the first attempt that tries to use some immune features to solve ad hoc security problems. The different prior efforts differ in application domains and the inspiration percentage; the more properties get mapped, the robust the system outcome. This paper introduces a security model that aim to simulate the mechanisms, components, and properties that the human immune system normally uses to protect the human body against different diseases. Section 3 discuss the related work, section 4 and the subsections present a framework for securing mobile ad