The Routing Protocol for low power and lossy networks (RPL) under Attack: Simulation and Analysis

Abstract

Routing protocol for low power and lossy networks (RPL) is the underlying routing protocol of 6LoWPAN, a core communication standard for the Internet of Things. In terms of quality of service (QoS), device management, and energy efficiency, RPL beats competing wireless sensor and ad hoc routing protocols. However, several attacks could threaten the network due to the problem of unauthenticated or unencrypted control frames, centralized root controllers, compromised or unauthenticated devices. Thus, in this paper, we aim to investigate the effect of topology and Resources attacks on RPL.s efficiency. The Hello Flooding attack, Increase Number attack and Decrease Rank attack are the three forms of Resources attacks and Topology attacks respectively chosen to work on. The simulations were done to understand the impact of the three different attacks on RPL performances metrics including End-to-End Delay (E2ED), throughput, Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) and average power consumption. The findings show that the three attacks increased the E2ED, decreased the PDR and the network throughput, and degrades the network’, which further raises the power consumption of the network nodes.