Securing IoT: Mitigating Sybil Flood Attacks with Bloom Filters and Hash Chains

Baird, Iain; Ghaleb, Baraq; Wadhaj, Isam; Russell, Gordon; Buchanan, William J.

Abstract

In the evolving landscape of the Internet of Things (IoT), ensuring the security and integrity of data transmission remains a paramount challenge. Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) is commonly utilized in IoT networks to facilitate efficient data routing. However, RPL networks are susceptible to various security threats, with Sybil and flood attacks being particularly detrimental. Sybil attacks involve malicious nodes generating multiple fake identities to disrupt network operations, while flood attacks overwhelm network resources by inundating them with excessive traffic. This paper proposes a novel mitigation strategy leveraging Bloom filters and hash chains to enhance the security of RPL-based IoT networks against sybil and flood attacks. Extensive simulation and performance analysis demonstrate that this solution significantly reduces the impact of sybil and flood attacks while maintaining a low power consumption profile and low computational overhead.

Citation

Baird, I., Ghaleb, B., Wadhaj, I., Russell, G., & Buchanan, W. J. (2024). Securing IoT: Mitigating Sybil Flood Attacks with Bloom Filters and Hash Chains. Electronics, 13(17), Article 3467. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13173467

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 29, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Aug 31, 2024
• Publication Date: 2024
• Deposit Date: Sep 4, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 4, 2024
• Electronic ISSN: 2079-9292
• Publisher: MDPI
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 17
• Article Number: 3467
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13173467
• Keywords: authentication; Bloom filter; hash chain