Modeling and analyses of IP spoofing attack in 6LoWPAN network

Abstract

6LoWPAN (modified version of IPv6 for low power devices) inherits security threats from its predecessor protocols, IPv4 and IPv6. IP spoofing is one such classic attack. There are vulnerabilities in 6LoWPAN and associated routing protocol, which open up new spoofing paths to the attacker. This study aims at profiling the feasibility to carry IPv6 spoofing attack on the 6LoWPAN network. Two new different attack paths are identified, which associate wrong IPv6 address with the MAC address of a node. These two paths use spoofed RPL and 6LoWPAN-ND messages to perform the IPv6 spoofing attack in an unsecured wireless medium. Probability of attack success is analyzed using the radio propagation environment parameters which affect the correct reception of a signal. It is shown that the success of an attack is highly dependent on the signal path loss. To perform the systematic mathematical analysis, attack tree model is used and attack is simulated in cooja simulator as well as performed in real experimental network. Our mathematical and simulated analysis show that path loss exponent, which represents distance based path loss, affects the probability of attack success. Attack feasibility analysis is done to find the cost to the attacker with respect to energy and memory consumption. It is observed that attacker code can be accommodated in memory constrained devices, and uses less energy to perform the attack, which manifests its feasibility.