Multicast DIS attack mitigation in RPL-based IoT-LLNs

The IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) was standardised by the IETF ROLL Working Group to address the routing issues in the Internet of Things (IoT) Low-Power and Lossy Networks (LLNs). RPL builds and maintains a Destination Oriented Directed Acyclic Graph (DODAG) topology using pieces of information propagated within the DODAG Information Object (DIO) control message. When a node intends to join the DODAG, it either waits for DIO or sends a DODAG Information Solicitation (DIS) control message Multicast to solicit DIOs from nearby nodes. Nevertheless, sending Multicast DIS messages resets the timer that regulates the transmission rate of DIOs to its minimum value, which leads to the network's congestion with control messages. Because of the resource-constrained nature of RPL-LLNs, the lack of tamper resistance, and the security gaps of RPL, malicious nodes can exploit the Multicast DIS solicitation mechanism to trigger an RPL-specification-based attack, named DIS attack. The DIS attack can have severe consequences on RPL networks, especially on control packets overhead and power consumption. In this paper, we use the Cooja-Contiki simulator to assess the DIS attack's effects on both static and dynamic PRL networks. Besides, we propose and implement a novel approach, namely RPL-MRC, to improve the RPL's resilience against DIS Multicast. RPL-MRC aims to reduce the response to DIS Multicast messages. Simulation results demonstrate how the attack could damage the network performance by significantly increasing the control packets overhead and power consumption. On the other hand, the RPL-MRC proposed mechanism shows a significant enhancement in reducing the control overhead and power consumption for different scenarios.

Automated summary

The RPL protocol is standardized for IoT routing issues and constructs DODAG topology using DIO messages. However, the DIS attack can significantly impact network performance by increasing control overhead and power consumption.