A Trust-Based Model for Secure Routing against RPL Attacks in Internet of Things

Area of Science:

• Internet of Things (IoT) security
• Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs)
• Network protocols

Background:

• The Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) is widely used in IoT but is vulnerable to routing attacks.
• Existing security solutions often overlook node mobility, limiting their effectiveness in dynamic IoT environments.
• Trust-based security offers a feasible approach for resource-constrained IoT devices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel security model, SMTrust, that addresses Rank and Blackhole attacks in RPL for both static and mobile IoT nodes.
• To enhance the security and performance of RPL in dynamic IoT scenarios.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of SMTrust compared to existing trust-based methods.

Main Methods:

• Development of the Security, Mobility, and Trust-based model (SMTrust) incorporating mobility-aware trust factors and metrics.
• Simulation experiments to evaluate SMTrust's performance in RPL-based IoT networks.
• Comparison of SMTrust against existing trust-based security solutions.

Main Results:

• SMTrust demonstrates superior performance in securing RPL compared to existing trust-based methods.
• Achieved 46% improvement in topology stability.
• Reduced packet loss rate by 45% and increased throughput by 35%.
• Minimal increase of 2.3% in average power consumption.

Conclusions:

• SMTrust effectively enhances the security and stability of RPL networks, particularly in dynamic scenarios with mobile nodes.
• The model provides a robust and efficient solution for mitigating routing attacks in IoT.
• SMTrust offers significant performance improvements with negligible impact on power consumption.