A routing defense mechanism using evolutionary game theory for Delay Tolerant Networks

•A general purpose defense mechanism is proposed against routing attacks on DTNs.•Evolutionary game theory is applied to analyze DTNs routing security issues.•The initial parameters affect both the convergence speed and the final ESS.•The initial strategies of the nodes affect only the game process.

Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs) often suffer from intermittent disruption due to factors such as mobility and energy. Though lots of routing algorithms in DTNs have been proposed in the last few years, the routing security problems have not attracted enough attention. DTNs are still facing the threats from different kinds of routing attacks. In this paper, a general purpose defense mechanism is proposed against various routing attacks on DTNs. The defense mechanism is based on the routing path information acquired from the forwarded messages and the acknowledgment (ACK), and it is suitable for different routing schemes. Evolutionary game theory is applied with the defense mechanism to analyze and facilitate the strategy changes of the nodes in the networks. Simulation results show that the proposed evolutionary game theory based defense scheme can achieve high average delivery ratio, low network overhead and low average transmission delay in various routing attack scenarios. By introducing the game theory, the networks can avoid being attacked and provide normal transmission service. The networks can reach evolutionary strategy stable (ESS) under special conditions after evolution. The initial parameters will affect the convergence speed and the final ESS, but the initial ratio of the nodes choosing different strategies can only affect the game process.

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