Hamming Distance Based Duplicate Address Detection in IPv6 Network

Abstract

Ensuring the uniqueness of Unicast IPv6 addresses prior to allocation is crucial in Internet of Things networks with constrained resources. Self-configured nodes often allocate IPv6 addresses using SLAAC and produce its own preliminary IPv6 addresses. Since the Duplicate Address Detection (DAD) protocol in SLAAC broadcasts the potential address over the network, it is vulnerable to a variety of attacks. This vulnerability is exploited by malicious nodes that can stop new nodes from joining the network by constantly claiming the tentative address. Several solutions have been proposed, yet they come with limitations. This work presents the modified DAD protocol (Hamming-DAD) that aims to solve these issues by being scalable, trustworthy, and compliant with industry standards. The preliminary IPv6 address in Hamming-DAD is broadcast in a way that hides the real address from any node in the network, new or existing one. This makes it far more difficult for a malicious node to obtain this preliminary address. The results of the experiments show that this method performs better in respect of ASR, overhead, and energy usage, and it effectively mitigates DoS assaults. By contrasting Hamming-DAD with other state-of-art solutions including Hidden-DAD, O-DAD, Secure-DAD, and Improved-DAD protocols, this strategy lowers energy usage and communication overhead around 4%, 5%, 7%, and 12%, respectively.