On the performance of 6LoWPAN using TSCH/Orchestra mode against a jamming attack

The active jamming for disrupting legitimate transmissions is currently one of the most used techniques by attackers. These attacks are difficult to detect and have rarely been addressed in low power and lossy networks (LLN). For instance, there are few simulations of scenarios that consider the presence of an attacker in LLNs. In this work it is simulated the presence of an attacker in an LLN with IPv6 over the Time-slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) mode of IEEE 802.15.4e and over the most recent Orchestra mode. The results show remarkable variations, in terms of Packet Data Rate (PDR) and energy efficiency, in the simulated scenarios when a malicious node is present, despite the Medium Access Control (MAC) mode used. For instance, the PDR shows a variation of 20% and the energy consumption 20% in the jamming scenario. Based on the evaluated metrics, we suggest guidelines to generate countermeasures to detect these types of attacks on indoor networks.