INTRODUCTION

UWCNs are
constituted by sensors,
sink, autonomous under
vehicles.

That interact to
perform specific
applications such as
under water monitoring.

Contd...

Each sensor node is a small, energy constrained device

with the ability to sense the surrounding environment.

The AUV has high mobility, deployed for applications

that need mobility.

The sink (base station) behaves as an interface

between the sensor nodes and the clients.

CONTENTS
UNDERWATER

WIRELESS

COMMUNICATION

NETWORKS
CHARACTERISTICS

AND

VULNERABILITIES

UWCNS
ATTACKS

ON UWCNS AND COUNTER MEASURES

SECURITY REQUIREMENTS
RESEARCH

CHALLENGES

SUMMARY
APPLICATIONS
CONCLUSION

OF

UNDER WATER WIRELESS

COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

Radio Waves do not propagate well Under Water due to the high
energy absorption of water.

Therefore under water communications are based on acoustic

links.(large propagation delays).

Acoustic channels have low bandwidth. As a result the bit error

rates of acoustic channels are high ,and looses of connectivity arise.

Contd

Under water wireless communication networks are

particularly vulnerable to malicious attacks.

Several methods are proposed to secure under water

wireless communication networks.

Schemes namely secure time

localization and routing in UWCNS

synchronization,

ATTACKS ON UWCNS AND

COUNTERMEASURES
The different attacks possible are:

Jamming

Wormhole Attack

Sinkhole Attack

HELLO Flood Attack

Acknowledgement Spoofing

Selective Forwarding

Sybil Attack

JAMMING

METHOD OF ATTACK:

The transmission of data

packets continuously so that
the wireless channel is blocked.

COUNTERMEASURES:

Spread spectrum techniques

Sensors can switch to sleep

mode

WORMHOLE ATTACK
METHOD OF
ATTACK:

False neighborhood
relationships are created.

The adversary can delay or

drop packets.

COUNTERMEASURES:

Estimating the direction of

arrival.

SELECTIVE
FORWARDING:

METHOD OF ATTACK:
Drop certain
messages instead of
forwarding to hinder
routing.

SINKHOLE ATTACK:

METHOD OF ATTACK:

Malicious node attempts to

attract traffic from a particular
area towards it.

COUNTERMEASURES:

COUNTERMEASURES:

Multipath routing

Geographical routing

authentication

Authentication of nodes
exchanging routing information

HELLOFLOOD ATTACK:

METHOD OF ATTACK:
ACKNOWLEDGMENT SPOOFING

A node receiving aHELLO

packet from a malicious
node interpret that the
adversary is a neighbour.

COUNTERMEASURES:

Bidirectional link
verification

METHOD OF ATTACK:

A malicious node overhearing

packets sent to neighbour nodes can
use this information to spoof
acknowledgments

COUNTERMEASURES:

Encryption

SYBIL ATTACK
METHOD

OF ATTACK:

An

attacker with
multiple identities can
pretend to be in many
places at once.

COUNTERMEASURES:

Position

verification.

RESEARCH CHALLENGES

The security issues and open challenges

for

1.Secure time synchronization

2.Secure localization

3.Secure Routing

SECURE TIME SYNCHRONISATION

Time synchronization is essential in many

underwater applications such as synchronized
sensing tasks.

The open research issues are:

1.Because of high and variable propagation delays

of UWCNs, the time required to synchronize nodes
should be investigated.

2.Efficient and secure time synchronization

SECURE LOCALISATION
Localization is a very important issue for data
tagging. It can also help in making routing
decisions.
Localization schemes can be classified into:
1. Range-based schemes
(i) Anchor-based schemes
(ii) Distributed positioning schemes
2. Range-free schemes

The open research issues..

Effective cryptographic techniques are required to

prevent injection of false information.

Algorithms able to determine the location of sensors

even in the presence of Sybil and wormhole attacks
have to be developed.

Techniques to identify malicious or compromised

anchor nodes and to avoid false detection of these
nodes are required.

Secure localization mechanisms able to handle node

mobility

SECURE ROUTING

Routing is specially challenging in UWCNs due to

the large propagation delays, the low
bandwidth, the effort of battery refills of
underwater sensors, and the dynamic
topologies.

Therefore, routing protocols should be designed

to be energy-aware, robust, scalable and
adaptive.

Spoofing, replaying or altering the routing

information affects routing

The open research issues are

There is a need to develop reputation-based

schemes

Quick and powerful encryption and authentication

mechanisms against outside intruders

Sophisticated mechanisms should be developed

against insider attacks

ADVANTAGES

It avoids data spoofing.

It avoids privacy leakage.

It minimizes communication and

computational cost.

Maximizes the battery power by

preserving the power of the sensors

DRAWBACKS

Challenging in UWCNs due to the large

propagation delays, low bandwidth, the
effort of battery refills of underwater
sensors, and the dynamic topologies.

Schemes are challenging as they do not

work well in mobile environments.

APPLICATIONS

Coastal Surveillance systems

Search and rescue operations

Contd.

Oceanographic studies

Marine Archaeology

CONCLUSION

As UWCNs have huge scope of applications in

sensitive military and intelligence fields, security
of the network is of paramount importance.

This report gives an overall view of the unique

characteristics of UWCNs, some of the common
threats and attacks faced by such a network and
some solutions to overcome these problems

The main research challenges related to secure

time synchronization, localization and routing
have also been surveyed.

REFERENCES

Mari Carmen Domingo, Securing Underwater Wireless

Communication Networks, IEEE Wireless Communications,
February 2011.

Zaihan Jiang, Underwater Acoustic Networks Issues and

Solutions, International Journal of Intelligent Control And
Systems, Vol. 13, No. 3, Page No. 152-161, September
2008.