Null-frequency jamming of a proactive routing protocol in wireless mesh networks

Disrupting network communication of adversarial networks is of increasing interest and importance. The use of jamming devices is a viable method for disabling the communication capabilities of enemy networks. This paper proposes a jamming technique which targets the periodic nature of the routing protocol residing in the network layer. The technique is based on the concept of null-frequency jamming which refers to periodic attacks targeting specific protocol period/frequency of operation. The effects of this jamming technique are investigated in stack, half-diamond, full-diamond, full-mesh and random topologies employing the optimised link state routing protocol. OMNeT++ 4.3 was chosen as the network simulation platform in which to conduct the investigations. It was found that when jamming at the 2 s null-period for a length of 0.5 s, there was a substantial drop in overall network performance. This technique was then compared to constant, deceptive and random jamming techniques and was shown to outperform the techniques in terms of the energy expended by the wireless nodes in the networks.