Security and energy consumption in TSCH

Abstract

The widespread adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) has brought forth remarkable opportunities, but also complex challenges in terms of energy efficiency, communication reliability, and network security. Among the solutions developed for low-power wireless networks, the IEEE 802.15.4e TSCH (Time-Slotted Channel Hopping) protocol stands out by offering deterministic, synchronized, and interference resilient communication for constrained devices. However, its reliance on upper-layer routing protocols, particularly RPL and its assumption of full node cooperation, make it susceptible to routing-layer threats, especially the Blackhole attack. This master’s thesis focuses on analyzing and mitigating the impact of Black hole attacks in TSCH-based networks. These attacks exploit trust-based routing by advertising false routes and subsequently dropping all incoming packets, disrupting the flow of communication. Through this work, we designed and proposed three solutions, adapted to the different variants of this attack. The first mechanism detects intruders using unknown identifiers; the second targets attacks by detecting suspicious activity, where the absence of messages from a node suspects the existence of a black hole, using unknown identifiers. The third mechanism is the automatic detection and isolation of an attack without having to know the unknown identifiers. Our proposed solutions were implemented using Cooja simulator under the Contiki-NG OS . Through simulations, we measured their effectiveness in terms of Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), average latency, throughput, and energy consumption using tools such as PowerTracker and Wireshark. The results showed a clear improvement in network resilience and communication integrity, validating the relevance and practicality of our contributions.