TinyTermite: A Secure Routing Algorithm

In this thesis, we introduce TinyTermite. TinyTermite is a novel probabilistic routing algorithm that is secure against selective forwarding and replay attacks. We use suspicion pheromone to build a flexible map of possible compromised neighbors. As suspicion builds up and decays for each neighbor, TinyTermite is able to deal with uncertain stimulus and react properly. TinyTermite is fully implemented on TinyOS based Intel Mote 2 platform and the experiments were done to compare its performance with that of the traditional Termite algorithm. The experimental results show that TinyTermite is significantly more secure against replay and sinkhole attacks by lowering the packet loss from 88.5% to 32.9% with 12.7% normal packet loss. The experimental results also demonstrate that the TinyTermite provides high throughput and low latency.;Suspicion pheromone is added to Termite that defends against the selective forwarding and replay attacks. In our experiments we implemented a detection scheme for the replay attack and show how countermeasures can be employed in TinyTermite. We found the suspicious pheromone technique to be quite effective against a replay attack coupled with a selective forwarding attack. The suspicion defense mechanism in TinyTermite provided a significantly better defense against the attacker than Termite alone.;The implementation of TinyTermite on the Imote2 platform was measured with respect to throughput, latency, and packet loss. We examine and measure the basic packet transmission mechanics between nodes on the Imote2 platform and suggest settings for better quality operations.