Toward a Taxonomy and Attacker Model for Secure Routing Protocols

A secure routing protocol represents a foundational building block of a dependable communication system. Unfortunately, currently no taxonomy exists to assist in the design and analysis of secure routing protocols. Based on the Dagstuhl Seminar 15102, this paper initiates the study of more structured approaches to describe secure routing protocols and the corresponding attacker models, in an effort to better understand existing secure routing protocols, and to provide a framework for designing new protocols. We decompose the routing system into its key components based on a functional model of routing. This allows us to classify possible attacks on secure routing protocols. Using our taxonomy, we observe that the most eective attacks target the information in the control plane. Accordingly, unlike classic attackers whose capabilities are often described in terms of computation complexity we propose to classify the power of an attacker with respect to the reach, that is, the extent to which the attacker can influence the routing information indirectly, beyond the locations under its direct control.