A Security Mechanism Against Man in the Middle Attack in 6TiSCH Networks

6TiSCH networks are wireless sensor networks using Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices. RPL is the routing protocol used to facilitate efficient and low-power communication in 6TiSCH networks. The Man in the Middle (MITM) attack on this protocol manipulates routing information, causing nodes to misdirect or block communication traffic. This can lead to nodes being redirected to the wrong destinations and data loss. In the study, the effects of the MITM attack on 6TiSCH networks and attack methods against the RPL protocol are discussed. In the proposed method, information obtained from nodes is processed periodically and attackers in the network are tried to be detected. Since nodes are assumed to be pre-authenticated by the central server, all data packets sent are encrypted. As a result of both verification and statistical processing of incoming data, attacker detection on the network is achieved. Moreover, the performance analysis of the presented method shows that it can be used for MITM attack detection in 6TiSCH-based IIoT environments.