SWCA: A secure weighted clustering algorithm in wireless ad hoc networks

Clustering has been widely used in wireless ad hoc networks for various purposes such as routing, broadcasting and Qos. Many clustering algorithms have been proposed. However, most of them implicitly assume that nodes behave honestly in the clustering process. In practice, there might be some malicious nodes trying to manipulate the clustering process to make them serve as clusterheads, which can obtain some special power, e.g., eavesdropping more messages. In this paper we present a Secure Weighted Clustering Algorithm (SWCA). SWCA uses the Weighted Clustering Algorithm (WCA) for clustering and TELSA for efficiently authenticating packets. We propose a novel neighbor verification scheme to check whether the values of election-related features (e.g., node degree) are forged by malicious nodes. Also, we theoretically analyze the probability for a malicious node to tamper node degree without being detected and derive a lower bound on the probability. Finally, simulation results show that SWCA is secure but still has comparable performance with WCA. To the best of our knowledge, SWCA is the first algorithm considering the security of 1-hop type clustering (in this type only the clusterhead can communicate with ordinary members directly) in ad hoc networks.