3rd IEEE International Conference on "Computational Intelligence and Communication Technology" (IEEE-CICT 2017)
Hindrance and Riddance of Gray Hole Attack In
MANETs Multipath Approach
Jyoti Prabha Singh
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Suresh Gyan Vihar University
Jaipur, India
Email: jyotiprabhasingh@gmail.com
Savita Shiwani
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Suresh Gyan Vihar University
Jaipur, India
Email: savita.shivani@mygyanvihar.com
Abstract Mobile Ad hoc Network is setup through different
individual moving nodes that are the self assertive in the spots
without any system foundation. In this kind of network the nodes
come in the mobility scope of each other for the communication.
Due to lack of infrastructure, impulsive changing topology or
open medium, ad hoc network is more vulnerable for attack and
provide vulnerabilities for the attacker to become a part of it. To
prevent security of mobile ad hoc network various security
measures are designed for the riddance of different types of
attack. Gray Hole is one type of Denial of Service attack (DOS)
that airs a great threat to the ad hoc network environment. For
the elimination of Gray Hole, we have proposed a packet update
scheme and even advise the elimination scheme by discovering all
the malicious nodes. The different performance measurements
for network parameters are considered such as throughput and
delay.
Keywords Network; Mobile Ad hoc; Gray Hole; Denial of
Server (DOS); Security; Simulation
I. INTRODUCTION
Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is an emerging area of
research which is infrastructure less network that enables the
user to communicate without any fixed infrastructure. The
nodes are movable which communicate and coordinate with
the other nodes. Mobile ad hoc , suitable for various types of
network such as military operation emergency and rescue
operations, mine cite mechanism, wireless mesh and various
sensor network.
Routing is the method of discovering the optimal path to
find the best destination through different routes. The various
types of metrics to find the best efficient path are variant
hops, traffic, security, delay etc. Each node is radically
deployable and adaptive in nature that has a modest
communication range and acts as the router for the packet
forwarding to the different end nodes.
978-1-5090-6218-8/17/$31.00 2017 IEEE
Dinesh Goyal
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Suresh Gyan Vihar University
Jaipur, India
Email: dr.dinesh.goyal@mygyanvihar.com
Vishal Gaur
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Govt. Engineering College
Bikaner, India
Email: dr.vishalgoar@gmail.com
Fig. 1. Mobile Ad-hoc Network
Security is the prima issues in the MANET among all the
research issues. There are two common kinds of denial of
server attack (DOS) ; one of them is Black Hole Attack and
the other one is Gray Hole attack which has major class of
threat today.
The denial of service (DOS) is one of the encroachment
attack in which the offender or the hacker causes impairment
to network by dropping energy of nodes battery life or by
disabling the network that breaks the communication between
the two connection. It can be done by overflowing the network
to prevent legitimate network traffic or by disrupting the
communication between the nodes by preventing access to
server. So, the role of adversary node is to disable the network
communication.
In Black Hole attack, the adversary attacks through the
vulnerable connection which generates and pass on necessary
information about routing and proposes for optimal route for
destination [1]. The malicious attacker replies to the
requesting node S before the authentic one does and a false
node is created. Therefore the packet is unable to reach the
destination; instead, the malicious node drops the packet thus
network traffic is disrupted.
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 3rd IEEE International Conference on "Computational Intelligence and Communication Technology" (IEEE-CICT 2017)
Gray Hole comes under DOS attack that airs a great threat
to the network indignity or in other words it is the extension of
Black Hole where attacker node behaviour is unforeseeable.
Attacker node may act up as the normal node till it performs
some malicious activity. Both the attacks strike the route
discovery method to worsen the network activity as well as
performance of the network. Gray Hole attack execute
malicious activity by dropping the packet selectivity by
launching a single malicious layer. They mislead the source
node by pretending for shortest path.
Gray-hole falls in category of Black Hole and wormhole
attack but the difference in gray hole lies in working set of
malicious nodes. Gray-hole attack may apply by the two
shipway either by dropping all incoming UDP packets or by
partial dropping of UDP packets with random selection
process. The attack can switch from behaving veritable to
sinkhole.
II. RELATED WORK
Research covers many topics related to ad hoc networks such
as threat, security or different strategies in MANETs. A lot of
researches in the last years are done in the form of assessment
and instrumentality but the most significant contribution was
the trust based security. This section shows a short discussion
on research related to topic of similar papers.
Lu et al [2] proposed new type of protocol called SAODV for
Black Hole detection in Mobile Ad Hoc and it is designed to
address the security weakness of the AODV.
Qutaiba rezouqi, et al [3], proposed simulation performance of
MANETs for the better performance of AODV protocol by the
matrix examined.
Jaydeep Sen et al [4] proposed method to discover the Gray
Hole by selecting the alternate position for reaching other end
and also proposed a method to prevent ad hoc from such
attack by using alarm packets and bypass malicious node.
Sukla Banerjee, et al [5] declares a process for elimination of
Black Hole and Gray Hole in ad hoc network. In this method,
transmitting the whole data traffic into small size of stop the
malicious node can be removed between the transmissions of
two different blocks by checking the peer - peer system.
Deswal and singh, et al [6] worked on an enhanced version of
SAODV protocol which include password for the securing ,
every routing links and even routing table gets updated on
time given process.
Ramaswamy, et al [7] suggested, mechanism for detecting the
multipath Black Hole and even modify the AODV by
introducing , Data Routing Information (DRI) table and aeven
cross checking method for it.
Hongmei deng et at [8] introduced a method for asking every
intermediate node for returnig next hope data along with the
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route request of the source node until the destination
determine.
In the paper of R. H. Jhaveri et at[12], they have surveyed
different common DOS attacks in MANETs. Various
solutions have been proposed to recognize and removing
attacks as MANETs, extensively used in many important
applications. These kinds of solutions for different routing
protocols are surveyed.
In the paper [9], authors have discussed the nature of Gray
Hole Attack. It was proposed that Gray Hole is a similar of
Black Hole in which nodes change their state from authentic
to malign. Due to the dynamic nature and limited resources in
MANETs the Gray Hole can take advantage and degrades the
network performance. They brought a mechanism to refine the
network performance on different parameters.
Authors in paper [10] brought an innovative approach which
not only identifies gray hole but also confirms its presences.
For this, they have designed algorithms into two phases
detection phase and confirmation phase. Thus they have
successfully identified gray hole also its removal
III. PROBLEM INVESTIGATION
On-Demand Protocol is commonly used protocols for route
discovery in mobile ad hoc networks. The route only created
when the end node S sends the instruction to provide
transmission of data packets to the other end and then only
route discovery process takes place.
A. Black Hole
1) The Source floods RREQ packets to neighbor node
that contains various information related to the destination
that is the source identity sid, destination identity did,
source seq_no , destination seq_no , node identifier (bid)
and time-to-live.
2) The neighboring nodes either forward the data packets
or send the RREP (Route Reply) packets when they
contain a new route to destination. The sequence number
of neighboring node is compared with the destination
sequence number of RREQ packet.
3) The intended receiving node forward the RREP reply
back to sender in the reversed path, where the shortest
path selects the path to send the packet.
Fig. 2. Procreation of route request message
 3rd IEEE International Conference on "Computational Intelligence and Communication Technology" (IEEE-CICT 2017)

IV. SYSTEM FLOW DIAGRAM

A. The working of Gray Hole attack

Fig. 3. Path of route reply message

B. Gray Hole
Gray Hole attack comes under category of Black Hole in
which the unwanted or the malicious node behaves as the real
node. Gray Hole node performs two different natures. Firstly
during the route discovery processes, it drops the packets and
secondly, by changing its state to mischievous state or vice
versa, where false node pretends to act like the true node. Its
difficult to discover the Gray Hole due to the malign nature of
the node such as adding congestion, overload and ability of
changing its state in the underlying network.

Fig. 4. Flow Chart depicting the working of Gray Hole Attack

V. SOLUTION DOMAIN
The research concerned to provide solution to the Gray Hole
attack by using multipath algorithm. The algorithm results in
the restoration of the average count of hops by excluding the
attacker node from the original node.
Research is done by executing the mobile network in
the OPNET simulator by using random way point mobility
model for providing mobility with AODV routing protocol.
Basic parameters are speed buffer size, speed of
nodes energy carrying capacity ,error rate for AODV protocol
and the trajectory selected for node is random waypoint for the
nodes movement is vector as shown in fig 4.

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 3rd IEEE International Conference on "Computational Intelligence and Communication Technology" (IEEE-CICT 2017)

Fig. 5. Overall Simulation with random waypoint model

VI. PROPOSED ALGORITHM

To find out the entire malicious node we need to repeat the

whole algorithm which can take more time and resources too.
So, to avoid this condition, transmitter will be quest help from
directly connected nodes. Next Node can inform about the
history of particular node under suspect.
So the nodes which are not involved in any previous activity
considered to be the malicious node which have been
blacklisted by the other nodes and do not involved in further
routes.
VII. RESULT

Throughput
200000
150000
100000
50000
0 Throughput
Network Gray Hole Migration
Scenario Scenario of Gray
Hole

Fig. 6. Results showing the throughput of the simulation process

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 3rd IEEE International Conference on "Computational Intelligence and Communication Technology" (IEEE-CICT 2017)

OPNET simulator is being used as the basic parameter. Area

for communication used is 1000x1000m with 40 mobile
nodes. The throughput and delay variation is shown in figure
6. The overall simulation performance is conferred in the
nutshell in the given table that demonstrate that the Gray Hole
attack scenario provides good result and even normalize the
Gray Hole effect network which results in normalizing effects,
of Gray Hole. In the first experiment packet travels are shown
as the throughput with approx value 142573 bit per sec. In
second experiment packet drop which are represented as
throughput, decreases value by 144933.

VIII.CONCLUSION
The overall study concludes that the Gray Hole is severe threat
in the ad hoc mobile network security which occurs due to
vulnerabilities of AODV routing protocol. Concept has shown
improved result after elimination of the Gray Hole attack in
the simulation result. Elimination takes place on the network
layer by broadcasting the information of the attacker node.

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