RPL routing protocol performance under sinkhole and selective forwarding attack: experimental and simulated evaluation

TELKOMNIKA Telecommunication, Computing, Electronics and Control
Vol. 18, No. 4, August 2020, pp. 1849~1856
ISSN: 1693-6930, accredited First Grade by Kemenristekdikti, Decree No: 21/E/KPT/2018
DOI: 10.12928/TELKOMNIKA.v18i4.15768  1849
Journal homepage: http://journal.uad.ac.id/index.php/TELKOMNIKA
RPL routing protocol performance under sinkhole and selective
forwarding attack: experimental and simulated evaluation
Bimal H. Patel, Parth Shah
Department of Information Technology, CSPIT, Charotar University of Science and Technology, India
Article Info ABSTRACT
Article history:
Received Feb 10, 2020
Revised Mar 21, 2020
Accepted Apr 10, 2020
To make possible dream of connecting 30 billion smart devices assessable
from anywhere, anytime and to fuel the engine growth of internet of things
(IoT) both in terms of physical and virtual things, internet engineering task
force (IETF) came up with a concept of 6LoWPAN possessing
characteristics like low power, bandwidth and cost. To bridge the routing
gap and to collaborate between low power private area network and
the outside world, IETF ROLL group proposed IPv6 based lightweight
standard RPL (routing protocol for low power and lossy networks). Due to
large chunks of random data generated on daily basis security either
externally or internally always remain bigger threat which may lead to
devastation and eventually degrades the quality of service parameters
affecting network resources. This paper evaluates and compare the effect
of internal attacks like sinkhole and selective forwarding attacks on routing
protocol for low power and lossy network topology. Widely known IoT
operating system Contiki and Cooja as the simulator are used to analyse
different consequences on low power and lossy network.
Keywords:
6LoWPAN
Contiki
Cooja
Internet of things (IoT)
RPL
Selective forwarding attack
Sinkhole attack
This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license.
Corresponding Author:
Bimal H. Patel,
Department of Information Technology, CSPIT,
Charotar University of Science and Technology,
Changa 388421, India.
Email: bimalpatel.it@charusat.ac.in
1. INTRODUCTION
Ever since the emergence of the term Internet of things (IoT) proposed by Kevin Aston in the late
1990’s, it has completely change era from analog to digitized world [1]. When IPv6 was introduced in 2011
momentum gained in terms of smartness connecting physical and virtual thing with the help of embedded
and sensor network technology. Smartness and intelligence are now widespread in the industry by way of
Industrial IoT, agriculture, smart home, healthcare, logistics etc. making life smoother and easier to live
and enjoy with fullest [2]. To make possible dream of 30 billion smart devices connected as predicted by
Gartner report [3], IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) came with the concept of 6LoWPAN (IPv6 over
low power wireless private area network) [4].Since standard routing protocol like AODV, DSR and OLSR
for wireless networks are not fitted for LLN due to its higher energy usage, repair in case of network failure
and lack of consideration of node/link properties for establishment of routes, IETF ROLL working group
comes up with RFC 6550 proposed standard RPL [5] which is IPv6 based lightweight, distance vector,
loop-free, proactive source routing protocol applied for highly adaptive and dynamically changing network
conditions with low power and lossy constraints personal area network. It fills the routing gap between
LoWPAN and on other side IP world. As more and more devices are connected, larger chunks of data will be

 ISSN: 1693-6930
TELKOMNIKA Telecommun Comput El Control, Vol. 18, No. 4, August 2020: 1849 - 1856
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generated on network leading to security concerns and greater possibility of network attacks externally as
well as internally. The aim of this paper is to evaluate performance of RPL protocol considering power
consumption as quality of service parameter under sinkhole and selective forwarding networking attacks.
In section 2 state of art related to RPL is mentioned which section 3 discuss two network attacks and
its implementation flow scenario in contiki operating system and Cooja as simulator support. Section 4 will
give idea about simulation configuration parameters and various scenario details. Section 5 discusses result
analysis in terms of power consumption for all three scenarios. Section 6 provides conclusion and throw
some light on future directions.
2. RPL (ROUTING PROTOCOL FOR LOW POWER AND LOSSY NETWORKS) IN
LITERATURE
RPL support mesh and hierarchical topology by considering routing through backup siblings/parent
when needed based on concept of “DODAG (Destination oriented directed acyclic graph)”.Acyclic property
helps to achieve loop free networks in graph.RPL supports all three traffic types i.e. P2MP (point to
multipoint) in terms of downward routes, MP2P (multipoint to point) using upward routes towards LBR
and P2P (point to point) for both transmission type like unicast and multicast.
RPL categorized nodes in three ways. 1) LBR (Low power and lossy border router) also called
DODAG root or sink node as shown in Figure 1 which acts as gateway between internet and LLN networks.
It has a property to generate new DODAG or its different versions. 2) Routers which is used for forwarding
and generating traffic. 3) Host also called leaf node or end device (indicated by 3 and 4 in DODAG1 and 3 in
DODAG2) which is capable of only generating traffic. As shown in Figure 1 there are two DODAG
(DODAG1, DODAG2) which combines as one RPL instance uniquely identified by RPLInstanceID. Nodes
may belong to multiple instances but should remain in one DODAG at a time within individual instance [6].
Each node in DODAG is differentiated with rank which defines nodes individual position and path to its
LBR. Rank values increases when you move in downward direction form sink node. Rank is computed based
on objective function (OF (0) and MRHOF) [7-9].
Figure 1. RPL concepts/terminology
2.1. RPL DODAG construction
It supports two route formation.MP2P traffic is supported using upward routes with the help of DIO
and DIS messages [10] for both grounded and floating node. P2MP and P2P traffic is supported using
downward routes with the help of DAO message. It carries out both route formation with the help of
neighbor discovery protocol which helps in local repair internally [11].
2.1.1. Upward route
Grounded node acting as LBR or sink node broadcast DIO which contains necessary information
like RPLInstanceID, objective function (OF (0) or MRHOF), version, trickle timer [12] information and
other parameters required for calculating rank to its neighbours. If the node willing to join DODAG receive
DIO message for first time it adds its address to parent list and compute rank as per prescribed objective

TELKOMNIKA Telecommun Comput El Control 
RPL routing protocol performance under sinkhole and selective forwarding attack… (Bimal H. Patel)
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function and then multicast updated DIO message to others. If a node which is already part of DODAG
receives DIO it discards or process it by analysing mentioned criteria. Based on criteria if node’s new rank is
less than old rank it changes it rank and updates its information to avoid loops else maintain its current
position in DODAG [13, 14]. If floating node wants to join DODAG it multicast DIS message to nearer
nodes. After receiving DIS message one of the grounded nodes send unicast DIO message back to floating
node which select appropriate neighbor or preferred parent to join DODAG [15].
2.1.2. Downward route
P2MP and P2P traffic is supported by downward route with the help of DAO control message. RPL
uses two modes of operation for maintaining downward routes; (a) Storing mode in which every router node
maintains routing information; (b) Non-storing mode in which only sink node will have routing information
and acts as source node to send traffic information to other nodes [16]. RPL provides both local and global
recovery schemes. If there is any link failure between two nodes or loop is generated it performs local repair
with the help of back up parent, rank and neighbor discovery protocol. Since by rule every child will have
higher rank compare to its parent it will never form loop and count to infinity problem will not occur. Though
local repair will not lead to optimal path and results in terms of quality of parameters global repair is required
by incrementing DODAG version number and whole DODAG is constructed with no concern to previous
version and new version will have optimal path for reaching sink node with the help of rank as parameter by
considering various objective functions.
3. ROUTING ATTACKS AGAINST RPL NETWORKS
RPL routing protocol for 6LoWPAN due to its properties like limited processing power, changing
network topology in terms of DODAG, link failures and mobility are prone to various network attacks.
Broadly attacks can be classified as external attack effected by internet (example brute force attack and
malware attack) and internal attacks due to wireless sensor networks [17, 18]. Again, internal attacks on
overall network can be categorized as attacks targeting exhaustion of networks, attacks targeting RPL
network topology and attacks against network traffic. In this paper, we will focus on the two routing attacks
sinkhole attack and selective forwarding attack and in further section we will evaluate it effect on power
consumption by comparing it with normal scenario.
3.1. Sinkhole attack
In sinkhole attack malicious node by artificially changing rank somewhat higher than border router
deceives legitimate nodes to get attacked towards itself claiming better path and link availability [18]. As
shown in below Figure 2 left hand side shows normal scenario where node 2 and 3 can be reached directly to
sink node/border router but when node 6 advertise its rank lower artificially than nodes which are in vicinity
will get attracted towards it.All nodes 2, 3,5,7,9 and 10 will get attracted towards malicious node 6 which is
shown in right hand side of Figure 2. This attack is more devastating and cause larger network problems
when it is combined with other attacks [19].
Figure 2. Normal to Sinkhole attack scenario
3.2. Selective forwarding attack
As name suggest this attack will forward control packets of RPL and drop data packets. Selective
forward attack will work in tandem with sinkhole attack and cause severe consequences to network by
attracting nodes and disrupting routing routes [18]. As shown in Figure 2 node 6 after attracting nearby nodes
either drops control packets or data packets and will not forward to legitimate node or to border router [19].
Overall flowchart describing implementation scenario is shown in below Figure 3. Here we are going to

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compare normal case and by button click event malicious behavior is activated and finally in terms power
consumption both scenarios is compared [20].
Figure 3. Implementation scenario of RPL attacks
4. SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT
The performance of RPL protocol has been evaluated and analyzed under normal [21-23] and attack
scenario (Sinkhole and Selective forwarding attacks) with the help of widely used IoT operating system
Contiki [24] while simulation support is provided by Cooja [25]. Various configuration parameters
considered to carry out simulation is shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Configuration parameters
Parameters Values
OS Contiki OS3.0
Mote Type Z1 mote
Number of Nodes (attack Nodes) 5nodes(1attack),10nodes(2attack),20nodes(3attack)
Radio Medium Model Unit Disk Graph Medium (UDGM): Distance Loss
Nodes Transmisson Range 30-50m
Nodes Interference Range 70-100m
Tx/Rx Ratio 100/50
DIO Min 12
DIO Doublings 8
RDC Chanel Check Rate 16
MAC Layer IEEE 802.15.4
Duty Cycle nullRDC
Network protocol ContikiRPL
Objective Function MRHOF
Simulation Time Scenario1:45 min, Scenario 2:30 min, Scenario 3:20 min

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To get meaningful results three different scenarios is considered, such as;
a. Scenario 1
As shown in Figure 4 5 Z1 motes are considered out of which 1 mote will act as sink/border mote,
1 mote will act as attacking mote and rest 3 will behave normally.
b. Scenario 2
Here we have considered 10 motes out of which 2 motes are behaving abnormally. Figure 5 (a) and
Figure 5 (b) gives us idea about what are the other motes in range of these attacking motes 9 and 10 which
are getting affected.
c. Scenario 3
To get accurate effect of power consumption on various motes due to attack scenario 20 motes are
considered out of which 3 are misbehaving. Figures 6 (a), (b) and (c) gives information about motes which
are getting affected in terms of power due to attacking motes 18,19 and 20.
Figure 4. Scenario 1 (5motes with 1 mote as malicious)
(a) (b)
Figure 5. Scenario 2 (10 motes with 2 malicious behavior); (a) mote 9 range and (b) mote 10 range

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(a) (b) (c)
Figure 6. Scenario 3 (20motes with 3 malicious behaviour);
(a) mote 18 range, (b) mote 19 range and (c) mote 20 range
5. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
In this section we investigate and compare normal and malicious behavior of all three scenarios
taking into account power consumption of motes as quality of service parameter. The formula for calculating
power and energy is described in (1) which takes into consideration approximate current consumption of Z1
motes circuits [26].
Energy Usage (mJ)(Z1 mote)
=
((17.4 mA ∗ transmit + 18.8 mA ∗ listen + 0.426 mA ∗ CPU + 0.02 ∗ LPM) ∗ 3V)
4096 ∗ 8
Power Consumption (mW) =
Energy Usage (mJ)
Time(s)
(1)
For scenario 1 as you can see from Figure 4 that 2 and 3 are neighboring nodes which get affected
due to mote 5 acting as attack node (sinkhole and selective forwarding). Power consumption of node 2 and 3
is increased compared to normal scenario is shown in Figure 7. In terms of percentage node 5 power
consumption is drained more compare to normal case since all traffic gets attracted.
Figure 7. Node 5 attack scenario
For scenario 2 as you can see from Figure 5 (a) that 2 and 3 are neighboring nodes which get
affected due to mote 9 acting as attack node (sinkhole and selective forwarding). Power consumption of node
2 and 3 is increased compared to normal scenario is shown in Figure 8 (a). Node 2 power is consumed more
since it is nearer to sink node also. From Figure 8 (b) it shows that power consumption of node 8 and 7 is
increased compared to normal scenario due to effect of attack on mote 10. In terms of percentage mode 9
and 10 power consumption is more compare to normal case since all traffic gets attracted.
For scenario 3 we have tried to cover bigger picture by considering 20 motes as you can see from
Figure 6 (a) that 8,12,15 and17 are neighboring nodes which get affected due to mote 18 acting as attack

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node (sinkhole and selective forwarding). Power consumption of node 8, 12, 15 and 17 is increased
compared to normal scenario is shown in Figure 9 (b). Similarly, power consumption effect of neighboring
nodes due to attack of mote 19 and 20 is shown in Figures 9 (a) and (c). It can be noted that effect of power
on attack motes due to sinkhole attack and select forwarding which is far from sink node is almost same
(18 and 19 mote). The motes which are located below attack node shows varying result since they are not
affected much. As we can see from Figure 9 (c) mote 16 which is in vicinity still is not affected much due to
attack effect on mote 19.
(a) (b)
Figure 8. Effect of Power consumption on other motes due to attack motes;
(a) mote 9 attack scenario and (b) mote 10 attack scenario
(a) (b)
(c)
Figure 9. Effect of power consumption on vicinity motes due to attack motes; (a) Mote 20 attack scenario,
(b) Mote 18 attack scenario and (c) Mote 19 attack scenario

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6. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
This paper compares normal and attack scenario using three different experiments. As we can see
from scenario 1, 2 and 3 that motes which are in vicinity and higher rank than attacking motes get affected
most in terms of power consumption while motes which are having already lower rank and choosing
attacking motes as parent are not affected much in both normal as well as abnormal scenario. We can also
conclude that power consumption of attacking motes is much more than motes when behaved normally.
In future same attacks can be compared with other quality of service parameters like PRR (Packet Reception
Ratio) and throughput along with packet delivery fraction. Sinkhole and Selective forwarding attacks can be
combined with wormhole attack which may show devastating effect on network resources.
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