Exploring Vulnerability of Topology-Based Routing Protocols to Sybil Attack in Pure Vehicular Ad Hoc Network

The implicit pervasiveness in the wireless communication technologies supported by their real-time and inexpensive deployments has paved the way to establish a pure vehicular ad hoc network where nodes are the vehicles on the move. Its inherent characteristics circumvent the requirement of expensive infrastructure and centralized control but incline it to diverse kinds of security attacks. Sybil Attack is one such attack in which a malevolent vehicle creates seemingly legitimate, but virtual, Sybil vehicles under its direct control, which are hard to detect in the absence of any centralised management. Using the routing protocols, this attack is capable of building various catastrophic scenarios, especially in exigent situations. One significant category of such protocols is the topology-based routing protocols category, segregated further into three subclasses. So far, there is no evidence suggesting that this category of protocols is vulnerable to the Sybil Attack. In this paper, we have deployed a prominent Ad-hoc On Demand Distance Vector Routing (AODV) protocol from this category for simulation purposes, using various illustrations and simulation results to demonstrate the disruption caused by the Sybil Attack across all three subclasses of topology-based routing protocols. Thus, concluding that all protocols under this category are vulnerable to the Sybil Attack.