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Faulty Node Repair and Dynamically Spawned Black Hole Search

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Security and Privacy in Communication Networks (SecureComm 2016)

Abstract

New threats to networks are constantly arising. This justifies protecting network assets and mitigating the risk associated with attacks. In a distributed environment, researchers aim, in particular, at eliminating faulty network entities. More specifically, much research has been conducted on locating a single static black hole, which is defined as a network site whose existence is known a priori and that disposes of any incoming data without leaving any trace of this occurrence. However, the prevalence of faulty nodes requires an algorithm able to (a) identify faulty nodes that can be repaired without human intervention and (b) locate black holes, which are taken to be faulty nodes whose repair does require human intervention. In this paper, we consider a specific attack model that involves multiple faulty nodes that can be repaired by mobile software agents, as well as a virus v that can infect a previously repaired faulty node and turn it into a black hole. We refer to the task of repairing multiple faulty nodes and pointing out the location of the black hole as the Faulty Node Repair and Dynamically Spawned Black Hole Search. We first analyze the attack model we put forth. We then explain (a) how to identify whether a node is either (1) a normal node or (2) a repairable faulty node or (3) the black hole that has been infected by virus v during the search/repair process and, (b) how to perform the correct relevant actions. These two steps constitute a complex task, which, we explain, significantly differs from the traditional Black Hole Search. We continue by proposing an algorithm to solve this problem in an asynchronous ring network with only one whiteboard (which resides in a node called the homebase). We prove the correctness of our solution and analyze its complexity by both theoretical analysis and experiment evaluation. We conclude that, using our proposed algorithm, b + 4 agents can repair all faulty nodes and locate the black hole infected by a virus v within finite time. Our algorithm works even when the number of faulty nodes b is unknown a priori.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This is the worst case scenario, which we use to calculate, later in the paper, the theoretical maximum number of agents sacrificed to solve the problem.

  2. 2.

    Minimal storage just sufficient to keep track of the number of moves an agent has performed during each exploration of a new node.

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Acknowledgment

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) under Grant No. GPIN-2015-05390.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Technology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

    Wei Shi

  2. Aurora Technology Development Inc., Toronto, Canada

    Mengfei Peng

  3. School of Computer Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

    Jean-Pierre Corriveau & William Lee Croft

Authors
  1. Wei Shi
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  2. Mengfei Peng
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  3. Jean-Pierre Corriveau
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  4. William Lee Croft
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wei Shi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Singapore Management University, Singapore, Singapore

    Robert Deng

  2. Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

    Jian Weng

  3. University at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, USA

    Kui Ren

  4. SRI International, Menlo Park, California, USA

    Vinod Yegneswaran

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© 2017 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

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Shi, W., Peng, M., Corriveau, JP., Croft, W.L. (2017). Faulty Node Repair and Dynamically Spawned Black Hole Search. In: Deng, R., Weng, J., Ren, K., Yegneswaran, V. (eds) Security and Privacy in Communication Networks. SecureComm 2016. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 198. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59608-2_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59608-2_8

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