OLSR – Security-related publications

@inproceedings{Clausen2010i,

title = {Router and Link Admittance Control in the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol version 2 (OLSRv2)},

author = {Thomas Clausen and Ulrich Herberg},

url = {http://www.thomasclausen.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2010-NSS-Router-and-Link-Admittance-Control-in-the-Optimized-Link-State-Routing-Protocol-version-2-OLSRv2.pdf},

doi = {10.1109/NSS.2010.20},

isbn = {978-1-4244-8484-3},

year  = {2010},

date = {2010-09-01},

publisher = {Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Network and System Security (NSS 2010)},

abstract = {This paper presents security mechanisms for router and link admittance control in OLSRv2. Digitally signing OLSRv2 control messages allows recipient routers to – individually – choose to admit or exclude the originating router for when populating link-state databases, calculating MPR sets etc. By additionally embedding signatures for each advertised link, recipient routers can also control admittance of each advertised link in the message, rendering an OLSRv2 network resilient to both identity-spoofing and link-spoofing attacks. The flip-side of the coin when using such a link-admittance mechanism is, that the number of signatures to include in each OLSRv2 control message is a function of the number of links advertised. For HELLO messages, this is essentially the number of neighbor routers, for TC messages, this is the number of MPR Selectors of the originator of the message. Also, upon receipt of a control message, these signatures are to be verified. This paper studies the impact of adding a link-admittance control mechanism to OLSRv2, both in terms of additional control-traffic overhead and additional in-router processing resources, using several cryptographic algorithms, such as RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography for very short signatures. Index Terms—OLSRv2, MANET, security, router, link admit-tance control, digital signatures},

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pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {inproceedings}

}

@inproceedings{Clausen2010j,

title = {Digital Signatures for Admittance Control in the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol version 2},

author = {Ulrich Herberg and Thomas Clausen and Jerome Milan},

url = {http://www.thomasclausen.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2010-ITAP-Digital-Signatures-for-Admittance-Control-in-OLSRv2.pdf},

doi = {10.1109/ITAPP.2010.5566285},

isbn = {978-1-4244-5142-5},

year  = {2010},

date = {2010-08-01},

publisher = {Proceedings of the International Conference on Internet Technology and Applications (iTAP 2010)},

abstract = {Public community Mobile Ad Hoc NETworks (MANETs), such as the “Funkfeuer” or “Freifunk” networks, scale up to several hundreds of routers, connecting users with each other, and with the Internet. As MANETs are typically operated over wireless channels (e.g. WiFi), access to these networks is granted to anyone in the radio range of another router in the MANET, and running the same MANET routing protocol. In order to protect the stability of the networks from malicious intruders, it is important to ensure that only trusted peers are admitted to participate in the control message exchange, and to provide means for logically “disconnecting” a non-trustworthy peer. This paper presents the concept of admittance control for the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol version 2 (OLSRv2), and suggests a security extension based on digital signatures. Due to the flexible message format of OLSRv2, this extension keeps compatibility with the core OLSRv2 specification. Several standard digital signature algorithms (RSA, DSA, ECDSA), as well as HMAC, are compared in terms of message overhead and CPU time for generating and processing signatures.},

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pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {inproceedings}

}

@inproceedings{Clausen2010k,

title = {Vulnerability Analysis of the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol version 2 (OLSRv2)},

author = {Thomas Clausen and Ulrich Herberg},

url = {http://www.thomasclausen.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2010-WCNIS-Vulnerability-Analysis-of-the-Optimized-Link-State-Routing-Protocol-version-2-OLSRv2.pdf},

doi = {10.1109/WCINS.2010.5544732},

isbn = {978-1-4244-5850-9},

year  = {2010},

date = {2010-06-01},

publisher = {Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Wireless Communications, Networking and Information Security (WCNIS2010)},

abstract = {Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) are leaving the confines of research laboratories, to find place in real-world deploy-ments. Outside specialized domains (military, vehicular, etc.), city-wide community-networks are emerging, connecting regular Internet users with each other, and with the Internet, via MANETs. Growing to encompass more than a handful of “trusted participants”, the question of preserving the MANET network connectivity, even when faced with careless or malicious participants, arises, and must be addressed. A first step towards protecting a MANET is to analyze the vulnerabilities of the routing protocol, managing the connectivity. By understanding how the algorithms of the routing protocol operate, and how these can be exploited by those with ill intent, countermeasures can be developed, readying MANETs for wider deployment and use. This paper takes an abstract look at the algorithms that constitute the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol version 2 (OLSRv2), and identifies for each protocol element the possible vulnerabilities and attacks – in a certain way, provides a “cookbook” for how to best attack an operational OLSRv2 network, or for how to proceed with developing protective countermeasures against these attacks.},

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pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {inproceedings}

}

@inproceedings{Clausen2004d,

title = {An advanced signature system for OLSR},

author = {Daniele Raffo and Cédric Adjih and Thomas Clausen and Paul Mühlethaler},

url = {http://www.thomasclausen.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2003-SASN-An-advanced-signature-system-for-OLSR..pdf},

doi = {10.1145/1029102.1029106},

year  = {2004},

date = {2004-01-01},

booktitle = {workshop on security of ad hoc and sensor networks},

pages = {10--16},

abstract = {In this paper we investigate security issues related to the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol -- one example of a proactive routing protocol for MANETs. We inventory the possible attacks against the integrity of the OLSR network routing infrastructure, and present a technique for securing the network. In particular, assuming that a mechanism for routing message authentication (digital signatures) has been deployed, we concentrate on the problem where otherwise "trusted" nodes have been compromised by attackers, which could then inject false (however correctly signed) routing messages. Our main approach is based on authentication checks of information injected into the network, and reuse of this information by a node to prove its link state at a later time. We finally synthetize the overhead and the remaining vulnerabilities of the proposed solution.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {inproceedings}

}

@inproceedings{Clausen2003e,

title = {Securing the OLSR protocol},

author = {Cedric Adjih and Thomas Clausen and Anis Laouiti and Paul Mühlethaler and Daniele Raffo},

url = {http://www.thomasclausen.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/securing-olsr.pdf},

year  = {2003},

date = {2003-01-01},

booktitle = {In 2nd IFIP Annual Mediterranean Ad Hoc Networking Workshop (Med-Hoc-Net 2003), Mahdia},

pages = {25--27},

abstract = {In this paper, we examine security issues related to proactive routing protocols for MANETs. Specifically, we investigate security properties of the Optimized Link-State Routing Protocol- one example of a proactive routing protocol for MANETs. We investigate the possible attacks against the integrity of the network routing infrastructure, and present techniques for countering a variety of such attacks. Our main approach is based on authentication checks of information injected into the network. However even with perfect authentication check, replay attacks are still possible. Hence, we develop a distributed timestamp-based approach for verifying if a message is “old ” or “current”. We finally present two different, simple algorithms for distributing public keys in a MANET, in order to provide a mechanism permitting authentication checks to be conducted. While we use OLSR as an example protocol for our studies, we argue that the presented techniques apply equally to any proactive routing protocol for MANETs.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {inproceedings}

}