The Internet of Things is one of the most transformative technologies of the modern era, enabling seamless connectivity and data exchange across a wide range of applications, including smart cities, healthcare, agriculture, and industrial automation. However, the rapid growth of IoT has introduced significant challenges, particularly in terms of security. Among these challenges, securing routing protocols in low-power and lossy networks is critical, as they are vulnerable to various attacks, such as rank spoofing and version number attacks, which can disrupt network topology and compromise data integrity. In this paper, we propose a novel identity-based routing protocol for IoT, built on the RPL (Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks) framework. Our approach utilizes Identity-Based Signature cryptography to enhance the security of RPL against rank and version number attacks. By utilizing a lightweight digital signature scheme, our protocol ensures that only legitimate nodes can modify the network topology, thereby preventing malicious actors from forging rankings or version numbers. The proposed scheme is designed to be computationally efficient, making it suitable for resource-constrained IoT devices. We provide a comprehensive security analysis, demonstrating that our protocol offers robust resistance to forging attacks. Additionally, we evaluate the performance of the scheme in terms of time and energy consumption, showing that it is both efficient and scalable for large-scale IoT deployments. Our results indicate that the proposed identity-based routing protocol not only enhances the security of RPL but also maintains low overhead, making it a practical solution for securing IoT networks in real-world applications.
Marietta, J., & Chandra Mohan, B. (2020). A Review on Routing in Internet of Things. Wireless Personal Communications, 111(1), 209–233. doi:10.1007/s11277-019-06853-6.
Zrelli, A. (2022). Hardware, Software Platforms, Operating Systems and Routing Protocols for Internet of Things Applications. Wireless Personal Communications, 122(4), 3889–3912. doi:10.1007/s11277-021-09116-5.
Ahmid, M., Kazar, O., & Barka, E. (2024). Internet of Things Overview: Architecture, Technologies, Application, and Challenges. Decision Making and Security Risk Management for IoT Environments. Advances in Information Security, vol 106. Springer, Cham, Switzerland. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-47590-0_1.
Pongle, P., & Chavan, G. (2015). A survey: Attacks on RPL and 6LoWPAN in IoT. 2015 International Conference on Pervasive Computing (ICPC). doi:10.1109/pervasive.2015.7087034.
Brandt, A., Hui, J., Kelsey, R., Levis, P., Pister, K., Struik, R., & Alexander, R. (2012). RPL: IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (T. Winter & P. Thubert, Eds.). RFC Editor. doi:10.17487/rfc6550.
Gaddour, O., & Koubâa, A. (2012). RPL in a nutshell: A survey. Computer Networks, 56(14), 3163–3178. doi:10.1016/j.comnet.2012.06.016.
Li, C., Liu, Y., Xiao, J., & Zhou, J. (2022). MCEAACO-QSRP: A Novel QoS-Secure Routing Protocol for Industrial Internet of Things. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 9(19), 18760–18777. doi:10.1109/JIOT.2022.3162106.
Ahmmad, B. A., & Alabady, S. A. (2023). Energy-efficient routing protocol developed for internet of things networks. IET Quantum Communication, 4(1), 25–38. doi:10.1049/qtc2.12051.
Mohseni, M., Amirghafouri, F., & Pourghebleh, B. (2023). CEDAR: A cluster-based energy-aware data aggregation routing protocol in the internet of things using capuchin search algorithm and fuzzy logic. Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications, 16(1), 189–209. doi:10.1007/s12083-022-01388-3.
Sahay, R., Geethakumari, G., & Mitra, B. (2021). A novel Network Partitioning Attack against Routing Protocol in Internet of Things. Ad Hoc Networks, 121. doi:10.1016/j.adhoc.2021.102583.
Gali, S., & Nidumolu, V. (2022). An intelligent trust sensing scheme with metaheuristic based secure routing protocol for Internet of Things. Cluster Computing, 25(3), 1779–1789. doi:10.1007/s10586-021-03473-3.
Pishdad, F., & Ebrahimi Atani, R. (2024). Prevention and detection of botnet attacks in IoT using ensemble learning methods. Biannual Journal Monadi for Cyberspace Security (AFTA), 13(2), 45-55.
Nia, M. A., Atani, R. E., & Haghi, A. K. (2014). Ubiquitous IoT structure via homogeneous data type modelling. 7’th International Symposium on Telecommunications (IST’2014), 283–288. doi:10.1109/istel.2014.7000715.
Baek, J., Newmarch, J., Safavi-Naini, R., & Susilo, W. (2004). A survey of identity-based cryptography. Australian Unix Users Group Annual Conference, 1-3 September, 2004, Melbourne, Australia.
Bösch, C., Hartel, P., Jonker, W., & Peter, A. (2014). A survey of provably secure searchable encryption. ACM Computing Surveys, 47(2), 1–51,. doi:10.1145/2636328.
Ananna, T. N., & Saifuzzaman, M. (2024). Introduction to Internet of Things. Studies in Computational Intelligence, 1169, 1–49. doi:10.1007/978-981-97-5624-7_1.
Levis, P., Clausen, T., Hui, J., Gnawali, O., & Ko, J. (2011). The Trickle Algorithm. RFC Editor. doi:10.17487/rfc6206.
Dvir, A., Holczer, T., & Buttyan, L. (2011). VeRA - Version Number and Rank Authentication in RPL. 2011 IEEE Eighth International Conference on Mobile Ad-Hoc and Sensor Systems. doi:10.1109/mass.2011.76.
Landsmann, M., Wahlisch, M., & Schmidt, T. (2013). Topology Authentication in RPL. 2013 IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops (INFOCOM Wkshps). doi:10.1109/infcomw.2013.6970745.
Stephen, R., & Arockiam, L. (2018). RIAIDRPL: Rank increased attack (RIA) identification algorithm for avoiding loop in the RPL DODAG. International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, 119(16), 1203-1210.
Tandon, A., & Srivastava, P. (2019). Trust-based Enhanced Secure Routing against Rank and Sybil Attacks in IoT. 2019 Twelfth International Conference on Contemporary Computing (IC3), 1–7. doi:10.1109/ic3.2019.8844935.
Hashemi, S. Y., & Shams Aliee, F. (2019). Dynamic and comprehensive trust model for IoT and its integration into RPL. Journal of Supercomputing, 75(7), 3555–3584. doi:10.1007/s11227-018-2700-3.
Karmakar, S., Sengupta, J., & Bit, S. Das. (2021). LEADER: Low Overhead Rank Attack Detection for Securing RPL based IoT. 2021 International Conference on COMmunication Systems & NETworkS (COMSNETS) 2021, 429–437. doi:10.1109/COMSNETS51098.2021.9352937.
Muzammal, S. M., Murugesan, R. K., Jhanjhi, N. Z., & Jung, L. T. (2020). SMTrust: Proposing Trust-Based Secure Routing Protocol for RPL Attacks for IoT Applications. 2020 International Conference on Computational Intelligence, ICCI 2020, 305–310. doi:10.1109/ICCI51257.2020.9247818.
Fatima-tuz-Zahra, Jhanjhi, N., Brohi, S. N., Malik, N. A., & Humayun, M. (2020). Proposing a Hybrid RPL Protocol for Rank and Wormhole Attack Mitigation using Machine Learning. 2020 2nd International Conference on Computer and Information Sciences (ICCIS), 1–6. doi:10.1109/iccis49240.2020.9257607.
Pishdar, M., Seifi, Y., Nasiri, M., & Bag-Mohammadi, M. (2022). PCC-RPL: An efficient trust-based security extension for RPL. Information Security Journal, 31(2), 168–178. doi:10.1080/19393555.2021.1887413.
Belavagi, M. C., & Muniyal, B. (2020). Multiple intrusion detection in RPL based networks. International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 10(1), 467–476. doi:10.11591/ijece.v10i1.pp467-476.
Nikravan, M., Movaghar, A., & Hosseinzadeh, M. (2018). A Lightweight Defense Approach to Mitigate Version Number and Rank Attacks in Low-Power and Lossy Networks. Wireless Personal Communications, 99(2), 1035–1059. doi:10.1007/s11277-017-5165-4.
Ebrahimi Atani, R. , Shabanipour, H. , & Arabnouri, A. (2025). A Novel Identity based Internet of Things Routing protocol based on RPL. Contributions of Science and Technology for Engineering, 2(1), 19-27. doi: 10.22080/cste.2025.28688.1013
MLA
Reza Ebrahimi Atani; Hamid Shabanipour; Arian Arabnouri. "A Novel Identity based Internet of Things Routing protocol based on RPL", Contributions of Science and Technology for Engineering, 2, 1, 2025, 19-27. doi: 10.22080/cste.2025.28688.1013
HARVARD
Ebrahimi Atani, R., Shabanipour, H., Arabnouri, A. (2025). 'A Novel Identity based Internet of Things Routing protocol based on RPL', Contributions of Science and Technology for Engineering, 2(1), pp. 19-27. doi: 10.22080/cste.2025.28688.1013
CHICAGO
R. Ebrahimi Atani , H. Shabanipour and A. Arabnouri, "A Novel Identity based Internet of Things Routing protocol based on RPL," Contributions of Science and Technology for Engineering, 2 1 (2025): 19-27, doi: 10.22080/cste.2025.28688.1013
VANCOUVER
Ebrahimi Atani, R., Shabanipour, H., Arabnouri, A. A Novel Identity based Internet of Things Routing protocol based on RPL. Contributions of Science and Technology for Engineering, 2025; 2(1): 19-27. doi: 10.22080/cste.2025.28688.1013
)