Overview
Underwater wireless
communication networks (UWCNs) include sensors and autonomous underwater vehicles
(AUVs) that interact to perform specific applications such as underwater
monitoring. Coordination and information sharing between sensors and AUVs make
the provision of security challenging.
The unique
characteristics of the underwater acoustic channel and the differences between
such networks and their ground based counterparts require the development of
efficient and reliable security mechanisms.
The aquatic
environment is particularly vulnerable to malicious attacks due to the high bit
error rates, large and variable propagation delay, low bandwidth of acoustic
channels in water. Achieving reliable inter vehicle and sensor-AUV
communication is especially difficult due to the mobility of AUVs and the
movement of sensors with water currents.
The above mentioned
characteristics of UWCNs have several security issues associated like packet
errors, eavesdropping, modification of packets, and many more. Also since power
consumption in underwater communications is higher than in terrestrial radio
communications energy exhaustion attacks can reduce network life.
The different attacks
possible are Jamming, Wormholes, Selective Forwarding, Sybil Attacks, etc.
Defences for these are discussed. Jamming can be overcome by Spread Spectrum
techniques, Wormhole detection is done with a visual modelling using Dis-VoW
and other attacks can be countered by authentication, verification, and
positioning.
Open research
challenges for secure localization, routing and time synchronization are
mentioned. In this paper UWCNs is discussed, with emphasis on the possible
attacks, countermeasures and further opportunities and scope for development in
this direction to improve security of such networks.
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