A secure routing protocol for low power and lossy networks based 6LoWPAN networks to mitigate DIS flooding attacks

Abstract

Routing protocols for low-power and lossy networks (RPL) is considered as one of the significant information forwarding routing protocols for IPV6-based low-power wireless personal area networks (6LoWPAN). However, RPL suffers in lack of an appropriate load balancing mechanism and malicious node attack whenever it communicates the DODAG information solicitation (DIS) messages to join in the network. Moreover, in the existing system, the uneven load leads to packet losses, delay, consumes more power, and degrades the lifespan of the network. In order to avoid the drawbacks this research work proposes a novel adaptive load balancing and route discovery mechanism to eradicate the DIS flooding attacks and improve the network lifespan with the aid of enhanced secure RPL routing protocol. This proposed secure RPL routing protocol distributes the load between the several modes efficiently and mitigates the DIS flooding attack in the network. The proposed approach is implemented using Cooja platform simulator with static and dynamic network scenarios. To compare the performance of the proposed system, the standard RPL protocol and RPL without any security are used. The experimental results indicate that the proposed scheme outperforms the other routing protocol by eradicating the DIS flooding attacks and load distribution over the network. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme could decrease the average packet loss ratio, end-to-end delay, energy consumption, control overheads, and enhance packet delivery, throughput, and network lifespan.