We present novel techniques to counter a set of active attacks such as denial-of-service (DoS), black hole, gray hole and man in the middle attacks (MITM), in a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) environment for single- and multi attack scenario. Attacks are detected using a profile (behavior) analysis for single attacks and a distributed trust for multi attacks. A standard ad hoc on demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocol, cluster based secure routing scheme and basic concept of ant colony algorithm has been used in a network simulator 2 (NS 2) environment. The combination of these proactive and reactive protocols is called as hybrid protocol.