SD6LoWPAN Security: Issues, Solutions, Research Challenges, and Trends

Internet Protocol v6 (IPv6) for low-power wireless personal area networks has been developed to facilitate and support IP stack communication over IPv6 networks. In RFC 6550, the Internet Engineering Task Force specifies the IPv6 Routing Protocol for low-power and lossy networks to promote efficient routing in 6LoWPAN. However, this technology is not mature enough to offer secure mechanisms and communications. In this context, Software-Defined Networking has been developed to provide programmability to the resource-constrained 6LoWPAN architecture creating a new paradigm called SD6LoWPAN. Moreover, researchers have proposed machine learning to provide fast reconfigurability and intelligence for SD6LoWPAN. This article aims to provide an overview pertaining to security issues in SD6LoWPAN, considering its resource, topology, and traffic. In addition, a study is presented on the SDN- and ML-based security solutions proposed in the literature. Security research challenges and trends are also put forward.