A Device Anonymization Protection Method Based on Address Hopping

With the growth of IoT technology, connected devices have surged, increasing security risks, especially for devices lacking authentication. Anonymization protection prevents data leaks and control theft but traditional methods lack dynamism, struggle to balance privacy and availability, and remain vulnerable to targeted attacks. Anonymization protection techniques can prevent the leakage of sensitive information and the theft of control privileges, significantly improving the security of devices. However, traditional anonymity protection methods lack dynamism, making it difficult to trade-off between data availability and privacy protection, and attackers can discover system vulnerabilities through reconnaissance and analysis, leaving devices still vulnerable to targeted attacks. In this paper, we propose a device identity anonymization protection method based on address hopping, using the address hopping policy in the Mobile Target Defense (MTD) technique. It collects network topology and node state information, constructs a virtual network topology by backtracking method, and periodically replaces the paths and addresses under the satisfaction of specific constraints, so as to realize the anonymity of network devices. It effectively reduces the risk of device attacks, optimizes network performance, and maintains data availability by dynamically adjusting device addresses in the network. Experiments using Mininet and Ryu controllers show the approach significantly reduces host scans and data exposure compared to unprotected policies.