• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
• /
• v.12 no.6
• /
• pp.2895-2921
• /
• 2018

Security has become one of the major concerns in mobile adhoc networks (MANETs). Data and voice communication amongst roaming battlefield entities (such as platoon of soldiers, inter-battlefield tanks and military aircrafts) served by MANETs throw several challenges. It requires complex securing strategy to address threats such as unauthorized network access, man in the middle attacks, denial of service etc., to provide highly reliable communication amongst the nodes. Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS) undoubtedly is a crucial ingredient to address these threats. IDPS in MANET is managed by Command Control Communication and Intelligence (C3I) system. It consists of networked computers in the tactical battle area that facilitates comprehensive situation awareness by the commanders for timely and optimum decision-making. Key issue in such IDPS mechanism is lack of Smart Learning Engine. We propose a novel behavioral based "Smart Multi-Instance Multi-Label Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (MIML-IDPS)" that follows a distributed and centralized architecture to support a Robust C3I System. This protocol is deployed in a virtually clustered non-uniform network topology with dynamic election of several virtual head nodes acting as a client Intrusion Detection agent connected to a centralized server IDPS located at Command and Control Center. Distributed virtual client nodes serve as the intelligent decision processing unit and centralized IDPS server act as a Smart MIML decision making unit. Simulation and experimental analysis shows the proposed protocol exhibits computational intelligence with counter attacks, efficient memory utilization, classification accuracy and decision convergence in securing C3I System in a Tactical Battlefield environment.