A Study of RPL DODAG Version Attacks

The IETF designed the Routing Protocol for Low power and Lossy Networks (RPL) as a candidate for use in constrained networks. Keeping in mind the di↵erent requirements of such networks, the protocol was designed to support multiple routing topologies, called DODAGs, constructed using di↵erent objective functions, so as to optimize routing based on divergent metrics. A DODAG versioning system is incorporated into RPL in order to ensure that the topology does not become stale and that loops are not formed over time. However, an attacker can exploit this versioning system to gain an advantage in the topology and also acquire children that would be forced to route packets via this node. In this paper we present a study of possible attacks that exploit the DODAG version system. The impact on overhead, delivery ratio, end-to-end delay, rank inconsistencies and loops is studied.