Forwarding loop attacks and counter measures in content centric networks

Abstract

<p>Content Centric Networking(CCN) is a novel networking approach that aims at overcoming some of the limitations of the current Internet. In particular, CCN aims at providing better security and privacy by focusing on the data rather than on the location of data. However, this new networking concept opens up avenues for launching several new types of attacks including the “Forwarding Loop attacks”.</p> <p>This paper describes how malicious customers can attack the availability of Content Centric Networks (CCNs) by creating forwarding loops. These loops cause one request to be processed repeatedly or even indefinitely, resulting in unwanted resource consumption and potential Denial-of-Service attacks. Next, we propose detection and mitigation techniques that will allow routers to identify and prevent the formation of such loops. To evaluate the practicality of such forwarding-loop attacks, we use the popular CCN simulation software, ndnSIM to simulate the occurrences of the loops and show how they can affect the overall service of the network.</p>