Isolating malicious nodes in the Internet of Things through a Trust-Based Mechanism

Abstract

Abstract:
Introduction:  IoT (Internet of Things) systems are open to attacks because of their resource-limited and ad hoc architecture. These systems support industrial and medical services and are used to manage massive amounts of data. IoT systems thus become vulnerable to a range of attackers, such as sporadic hackers, cybercriminals, hacktivists, and even governmental organizations. These hackers' main objective is to compromise IoT devices in order to obtain sensitive data, including credit card numbers, location information, bank account credentials, and health information. The version number attack is one serious danger; it is a malicious activity that negatively affects network performance. Malicious nodes launch this attack by overloading the network with hello packets, which causes a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. This study suggests a trust-based mechanism, in which each node is given a trust value determined by its activity, to solve this problem. The network isolates and labels as malicious the nodes with the lowest trust values. After the suggested scheme is put into practice in NS2, its effectiveness is assessed in terms of throughput, packet loss, delay, and energy usage.