A security routing algorithm against selective forwarding attacks in scale-free networks

Abstract Scale-free networks are vulnerable to the selective forwarding attacks where the legitimated data packet is discarded by malicious nodes. And it is easy for non-balanced energy consumption to happen and prematurely make the network disconnection. This paper proposes the multiple attribute decision making model, which has the balanced characteristic of various factors. In the model, the node’s energy transmission efficiency, load and packet loss rate are defined as node attributes, and the weight value of each attribute is calculated by relative entropy. Furthermore, according to the decision values of the forward neighbors, the optimal routing node is determined. The simulation experiment results show that the routing algorithm based on decision model can effectively avoid the nodes suffered from selective forward attacks, improve the energy utilization and prolong the lifetime.