keywords: ad hoc networks, security, hash chains, hash trees, secure routing, wormhole detection, topology control

abstract  In this paper we present SECTOR, a set of mechanisms for the secure verification of the time of encounters between nodes in multi-hop wireless networks. This information can be used notably to prevent wormhole attacks (without requiring any clock synchronization), to secure routing protocols based on last encounters (with only loose clock synchronization), and to control the topology of the network. SECTOR is based primarily on distance-bounding techniques, on one-way hash chains and on Merkle hash trees. We analyze the communication, computation and storage complexity of the proposed mechanisms and we show that, due to their ef- ficiency and simplicity, they are compliant with the limited resources of most mobile devices.