Securing the Internet of Things Environment against RPL Attacks

Kevin Ashton first coined the term Internet of Things in his presentation on automating the supply

chain processes using RFIDs. His idea of the Internet of Things (IoT) was to empower computing

devices and make the human intervention redundant. The two critical behavioral characteristics

achieved by the Internet of Things are interaction with the physical world and the possibility of

communication and analysis of the collected data to drive business processes. The term "Things"

refers to smart objects equipped with one or more sensors or actuators, a limited capacity microprocessor,

a communication device, and a power source. The sensor in the smart object is what gives

it the ability to interact with the physical world. The microprocessor enables the transformation of

the captured data from the sensors at a limited speed and complexity. The communication device

enables the smart object to communicate the sensor reading to the outside world and take input from

other smart objects. As smart objects can be placed in remote locations, constant energy supply is

not always possible, so they require battery power sources for functioning. In the last decade, the

Internet of Things has been interpreted in diverse ways and used in multiple applications ranging

from home automation, building automation, industrial IoT to the smart city.

The Internet of Things is developed based on similar technologies like the machine to machine

communication, telemetry, and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). IoT draws its closest similarity

to WSNs because both these environments focus on data gathering and communication through wireless

radios. The difference lies in the frequency and scale of data gathering and communication and

the fact that the IoT devices perform other tasks like actuating and control.