Comprehensive Examination of Version Number Attacks in IoT Networks: Nodes Hyperactivity as Specific Criterion

The security landscape of Internet of Things (IoT) networks continues to draw significant attention from recent networks; the Version Number Attack (VNA) stands out as a prominent threat to IoT network resources. Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Network structures low-power and lossy networks through one or more Destination Oriented Directed Acyclic Graphs (DODAGs). Each DODAG is assigned a version number, serving the purpose of ensuring the existence of loop-free paths to the root node. In the event of any inconsistency detected by the root node, the version number is incremented, triggering a global repair process and the reconstruction of the Directed Acyclic Graph. A potential security concern arises when a malicious node advertises a false version number in its control message, compelling the initiation of a global repair process. This study conducts a comprehensive analysis of the VNA’s impact, considering various parameters that have not been explored in previous research articles. These parameters include an examination of the additional forwarding tasks introduced by the attack and an exploration of factors contributing to node hyperactivity (such as loops, local and global repairs, etc.). The article delves into the specific control messages that result in the detrimental effects of the attack, offering a detailed analysis of control overhead, energy consumption, Packet Delivery Ratio, and latency. The obtained results show that the DAO (Destination Advertisement Object) messages dominate the total control overhead and are the main contributor to the total consumer energy, where the closest the malicious node to the sink the more damaging is the attack.