Clustering and reliability-driven mitigation of routing attacks in massive IoT systems

Abstract

As an integral component of the 5G communications, the massive Internet of Things (IoT) are vulnerable to various routing attacks due to their dynamic infrastructure, distinct computing resources, and heterogeneity of mobile objects. The sinkhole and selective forwarding attacks stand out among the most destructive ones for infrastructureless networks. Despite the countermeasures introduced by legacy intrusion detection systems (IDS), the massive IoT seeks novel solutions to address their unique requirements. This paper introduces DeTection of SinkHole And SelecTive ForwArding for Supporting SeCure routing for Internet of THIngs (THATACHI), a new IDS against sinkhole and selective forwarding attacks that target routing mechanism in massive and mobile IoT networks. To cope with the density and mobility challenges in the detection of attackers and ensuring reliability, THATACHI exploits watchdog, reputation and trust strategies. Our performance evaluation under an urban scenario shows that THATACHI can perform with a 99% detection rate, 6% of false negative and false positive rates. Moreover, when compared to its closest predecessor against sinkhole attacks for IoT, THATACHI runs with at least 50% less energy consumption.