In this letter, we propose a hybrid authentication algorithm to alleviate the latent security problems of mobile multi-hop networks. The proposed scheme uses centralized authentication when a node first joins the network, and uses distributed authentication for the hop-by-hop authentication among multi-hop nodes. We also analyze performance of the proposed scheme.

Due to the proliferation of mobile devices connected to the Internet, implementing a secure and practical Mobile IP has become an important goal. A mobile IP can not work properly without authentication between the mobile node (MN), the home agent (HA) and the foreign agent (FA). In this paper, we propose a practical Mobile IP authentication protocol that uses public key cryptography only during the initial authentication. The proposed scheme is compatible with the conventional Mobile IP protocol and provides scalability against the number of MN's. We also show that the proposed protocol offers secure operation.