On the Impact of the RPL Decreased Rank Attack on 6TiSCH Networks

The 6TiSCH protocol stack was designed to provide a reliable and time-bound multi-hop routing solution for the Industrial Internet of Things (1IoT), integrating the IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) and Time-Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) protocols seamlessly. However, deviations from standard procedures by malicious nodes can severely affect network formation and operations, resulting in degraded performance. This study investigates the impact of the decreased rank attack (DRA) on RPL within the 6TiSCH network, examining its effects on network operations and per-formance. Experimental evaluation reveals that DRA can lead to an average delay of 21.4% in network formation and run-time disruptions, thereby affecting the 6TiSCH synchronization process. Consequently, node departures from the network and subsequent rejoining to maintain the topology increase by an average of 60.71 %. To deal with this disruption, the nodes need to send more keep-alive and RPL messages, resulting in an average increase of 69.70% and 20.08%, respectively, leading to a 49.9% increase in energy depletion. Furthermore, the D RA reduces the packet delivery ratio and increases the average end-to-end packet delay by averages of 5.13% and 20%, respectively. However, it is important to note that the impact of the attack can vary significantly depending on the specific configurations and setups used, such as network topology, network size, attacker position, neighboring density, and RPL/TSCH parameter settings.