A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a spontaneous network that can be established with no fixed infrastructure. This means that all its nodes behave as routers and take part in its discovery and maintenance of routes to other nodes in the network. Routing protocols of MANET should be able to cope with the new challenges that a MANET creates such as nodes mobility, security maintenance, quality of service, limited bandwidth and limited power supply. These challenges set new demands on MANET routing protocols. Security has become a primary concern in order to provide protected communication between nodes in a potentially hostile environment. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks has also become a major problem in MANET. A DDoS attack is a distributed, large-scale attempt by malicious users to flood the victim network with an enormous number of packets. This exhausts the victim network of resources such as bandwidth, computing power, etc. The victim is unable to provide services to its legitimate clients and network performance is greatly deteriorated. In Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET), various types of Denial of Service Attacks (DoS) are possible because of the inherent limitations of its routing protocols.

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References

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