Timeout Period Analysis to Detect Black Hole Attack in Multihop Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

A novel approach is proposed to estimate the timeout period used in wireless ad hoc networks in order to detect misbehaving nodes that make black hole attacks. Timeout period is an acceptable time frame for a node to forward a packet and is used to judge if the node is behaving properly. To avoid misjudgment and false alarms, the accuracy of the estimate of the timeout period is very important. Our method is based on the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol and Dynamic Source Routing protocol. The main contribution of this paper is proposing a queuing analysis to calculate the mean and maximum delay per hop implementing the 95-percentile of medium access waiting time. In addition, a new technique is introduced that can be applied to determine the mean number of hops in flooding-based ad hoc networks, taking into account edge effects. For each proposed model, analytical results are compared with results obtained from simulations and the validity of the models is confirmed by observing the close relationship between the results.