A Tag Encoding Scheme against Pollution Attack to Linear Network Coding

Network coding (NC) and erasure coding (EC) share a common principle of encoding incoming data packets at network intermediate nodes so that destination nodes can reconstruct the original data packets using a sufficient number of encoded data packets collected at the destinations. While NC in general reduces the number of packets sent through the network, EC introduces redundancy into the packet streams to recover from lost packets. Many research papers in NC assume loss-free packet transmission, and to address this issue, end-to-end packet loss recovery through EC has been proposed. In this paper, we investigate hop-by-hop packet loss recovery through EC so as to avoid the accumulation of lost packets throughout the network using flow oriented EC. Specifically, we explore combined NC and EC at intermediate nodes in the networks to allow for improved packet loss recovery compared to end-to-end EC. Different implementations trading the packet processing complexity at the intermediate and destination nodes are considered. This paper first examines the effects of data loss in NC and then the improvements achievable with the proposed method are presented.

Recent studies show that network coding can provide significant benefits to network protocols, such as increased throughput, reduced network congestion, higher reliability, and lower power consumption. The core principle of network coding is that intermediate nodes actively mix input packets to produce output packets. This mixing subjects network coding systems to a severe security threat, known as a \emph{pollution attack}, where attacker nodes inject corrupted packets into the network. Corrupted packets propagate in an epidemic manner, depleting network resources and significantly decreasing throughput. Pollution attacks are particularly dangerous in wireless networks, where attackers can easily inject packets or compromise devices due to the increased network vulnerability.In this paper, we address pollution attacks against network coding systems in wireless mesh networks. We demonstrate that previous solutions to the problem are impractical in wireless networks, incurring an unacceptably high degradation of throughput. We propose a lightweight scheme, DART, that uses time-based authentication in combination with random linear transformations to defend against pollution attacks. We further improve system performance and propose EDART, which enhances DART with an optimistic forwarding scheme. A detailed security analysis shows that the probability of a polluted packet passing our verification procedure is very low. Performance results using the well-known MORE protocol and realistic link quality measurements from the Roofnet experimental testbed show that our schemes improve system performance over 20 times compared to previous solutions.

In network system, network coding allows intermediate nodes to encode the received messages before forwarding them, thus network coding is vulnerable to pollution attacks. Besides, the attacks are amplified by the network coding process with the result that the whole network maybe pollutes. In this paper, we proposed a novel unconditionally secure authentication code for multi-source network coding, which is robust against pollution attacks. For the authentication scheme based on theoretic strength, it is robust against those attackers that have unlimited computational resources, and the intermediate nodes therein can verify the integrity and origin of the encoded messages received without having to decode them, and the receiver nodes can check them out and discard the messages that fail the verification. By this way, the pollution is canceled out before reaching the destinations.

It has been shown in the literature that Network Coding (NC) can boost the performance of wireless networks. However, to really obtain the potential gain of NC, efficient Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols that operate with awareness of the NC functions are necessary. In this paper, we propose a novel NC-aware MAC protocol for IEEE 802.11 wireless networks that combines k-batch transmissions and multiple receiver-initiated reverse direction exchanges involving NC data to boost the overall network performance. The proposed protocol allows any node to transmit a burst of data packets in a single channel access invocation. Then, an intermediate node can transmit an NC data packet when receiving a valid data packet from a source node, without contending for channel access. Both analytical and simulation results presented in this paper show the high throughput and energy efficiency of the proposed protocol with gains ranging from 33% to 298% when compared to existing mechanisms based on the IEEE 802.11 Standard.∗

Network coding provides the advantage of maximizing the usage of network resources, but the natural properties of network coding also make the pollution attack more threatening. Much work on resisting pollution attacks is through homomorphic MACs. But majority have same security parameter 1/q. In this paper, we present two ways to construct homomorphic MAC which improve the performance of previous schemes. The security parameters of our MACs are 1/ql1 and 1/ql2, respectively. Besides the higher security, our MAC schemes have lower computational complexity.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been widely used for applications in numerous fields. One of the main challenges is the limited energy resources when designing secure routing in such networks. Hierarchical organization of nodes in the network can make efficient use of their resources. In this case, a subset of nodes, the cluster heads (CHs), is entrusted with transmitting messages from cluster nodes to the base station (BS). However, the existence of selfish or pollution attacker nodes in the network causes data transmission failure and damages the network availability and integrity. Mainly, when critical nodes like CH nodes misbehave by refusing to forward data to the BS, by modifying data in transit or by injecting polluted data, the whole network becomes defective. This paper presents a secure protocol against selfish and pollution attacker misbehavior in clustered WSNs, known as (SSP). It aims to thwart both selfish and pollution attacker misbehaviors, the former being a form of a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. In addition, it maintains a level of confidentiality against eavesdroppers. Based on a random linear network coding (NC) technique, the protocol uses pre-loaded matrices within sensor nodes to conceive a larger number of new packets from a set of initial data packets, thus creating data redundancy. Then, it transmits them through separate paths to the BS. Furthermore, it detects misbehaving nodes among CHs and executes a punishment mechanism using a control counter. The security analysis and simulation results demonstrate that the proposed solution is not only capable of preventing and detecting DoS attacks as well as pollution attacks, but can also maintain scalable and stable routing for large networks. The protocol means 100% of messages are successfully recovered and received at the BS when the percentage of lost packets is around 20%. Moreover, when the number of misbehaving nodes executing pollution attacks reaches a certain threshold, SSP scores a reception rate of correctly reconstructed messages equal to 100%. If the SSP protocol is not applied, the rate of reception of correctly reconstructed messages is reduced by 90% at the same case.

The network coding usually suffers from pollution attacks. Two schemes against pollution attacks are discussed in this paper, based on linear space signature and information theory, respectively. Pollution attacks detection algorithm of information theory based scheme is improved. The time consumptions of two schemes under different conditions of file size and data segmentation size are compared, and then a new scheme combining linear space signature and with information theory is provide to fight pollution attacks.

Link layer network coding (LLNC) promises to provide high throughput in relay networks through combining packets at the relays and trading communication for computation. The emerging area of physical layer network coding (PLNC) exploits the electromagnetic nature of signals and eliminates the need for addition at the packet level, while making signal design and coding schemes adaptable to the channel conditions. Although network coding has been extensively studied recently, physical layer network coding has not received the attention it deserves. Several recent works introduced the pollution attack at the network layer; however, the network performance at the physical layer with pollution attacks has not been evaluated before. The main challenge with the pollution attack involves propagation of the corrupted packets in an epidemic manner, which degrades performance of the network. As PLNC schemes boost up the network throughput, a thorough study evaluating this superiority to the LLNC scheme in presence of an intruder is necessary. The robustness of both schemes towards an attack have been studied in this article.

In this paper we are interested in improving the performance of constructive network coding schemes for video transmission over packet lossy networks. A novel unequal packet loss protection scheme R2NC based on low-triangular global coding matrix with ladder-shaped partition will be presented, which combines redundant and random network coding for robust H.264/SVC video transmission. Firstly, the error-correcting capabilities of redundant network coding make our scheme resilient to loss. Secondly, the implementation of random network coding at the intermediate nodes with multiple input links can reduce the cost of network bandwidth, thus reducing the end to end delay for video transmission. Thirdly, the low-triangular global coding matrix with ladder-shaped partition is maintained throughout R2NC process to provide unequal erasure protection for H.264/SVC priority layers. The redundant network coding avoids the retransmission of lost packets and improves error correcting capabilities of lost packets. Based only on the knowledge of the loss rates on the output links, the source node and intermediate nodes can make decisions for redundant network coding and random network coding (i.e., how much redundancy to add at this node). However, the redundancy caused by redundant network coding makes the network load increases, in order to improve network throughput, we perform random network coding at the intermediate nodes. Our approach is grounded on the overall distortion of reconstructed video minimization by optimizing the amount of redundancy assigned to each layer. Experimental results are shown to demonstrate the significant improvement of H.264/SVC video reconstruction quality with R2NC over packet lossy networks.

Chapter 1 - An Introduction to Network Coding

We propose a novel network coding (NC) enabled named data networking (NDN) architecture for scalable video delivery. Our architecture utilizes NC in order to address the problem that arises in the original NDN architecture, where optimal use of the bandwidth and caching resources necessitates the coordination of the Interest forwarding decisions. To optimize the performance of the proposed NC-based NDN architecture and render it appropriate for transmission of scalable video, we devise a novel rate allocation algorithm that decides on the optimal rates of Interests sent by clients and intermediate nodes. The flow of Data packets achieved by this algorithm maximizes the average quality of the video delivered to the client population. To support the handling of Interest and Data packets when intermediate nodes perform NC, we introduce the use of Bloom filters, which store efficiently additional information about the Interest and Data packets, and modify accordingly the standard NDN architecture. We also devise an optimized Interest forwarding strategy that implements the target rate allocation. The proposed architecture is evaluated for transmission of scalable video over PlanetLab topologies. The evaluation shows that the proposed scheme exploits optimally the available network resources.

The development of smart grid depends on increased deployment of two-way communication to improve its efficiency and reliability of power delivery. However, this additional dependency also expands the risk from pollution attacks, which consist of injecting malicious packets in the network. The pollution attacks are amplified by the network coding process, resulting in a greater damage to the state estimation and decision making. In this paper, we address this issue by designing an efficient authentication protocol, named EAPA, for the smart grid communication. The proposed scheme allows not only recipient nodes, but also intermediate nodes, to verify the integrity and origin of the packets received without having to decode, and thus detect and discard the malicious packets in transit that fail the verification. By this means, the pollution is canceled out before reaching the destinations. Security analysis demonstrates that the EAPA can be resilient to data/tag pollution attacks and replay attacks. Performance evaluation results show that our EAPA can reduce much more communication overhead than Wu’s scheme.

As one of the emerging technologies with most potential for developing, Network Coding (NC) has gained significant momentum. Due to encode-and-forward model, NC has natural privacy in communication, but it also induces that attackers become more imperceptible and impact on NC caused by them becomes more far-reaching. This requires that the security schemes should consider the characteristics of different attacks in NC. In this paper, we provide a survey of secure network coding toward various attacks. First of all, we summarize four types of representative attacks in NC system including entropy attack, Byzantine attack, pollution attack and eavesdropping attack, and compare the differences of these attacks between in traditional store-and-forward mode and network coding mode. Secondly, we give a comprehensive investigation of numerous defense approaches and mechanisms classified by these attacks. Finally, for stimulating stream of thoughts about secure network coding schemes, several open issues are proposed and discussed.

Short signature scheme for multi-source network coding

In this work, the homomorphism of the classic linear block code in linear network coding for the case of binary field and its extensions is studied. It is proved that the classic linear error-control block code is homomorphic network error-control code in network coding. That is, if the source packets at the source node for a linear network coding are precoded using a linear block code, then every packet flowing in the network regarding to the source satisfies the same constraints as the source. As a consequence, error detection and correction can be performed at every intermediate nodes of multicast flow, rather than only at the destination node in the conventional way, which can help to identify and correct errors timely at the error-corrupted link and save the cost of forwarding error-corrupted data to the destination node when the intermediate nodes are ignorant of the errors. In addition, three examples are demonstrated which show that homomorphic linear code can be combined with homomorphic signature, McEliece public-key cryptosystem and unequal error protection respectively and thus have a great potential of practical utility.