Intrusion Detection of Sinkhole Attack in Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

Underwater networks have the potential to allow previously unexplored applications as well as improve our ability to observe and forecast the ocean. Underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) are often deployed in unprecedented and hostile waters and face many security threats. Applications based on UASNs such as coastal defense, pollution monitoring, assisted navigation to name a few, require secure communication. A new set of communication protocols and cooperative coordination algorithms have been proposed to enable collaborative monitoring tasks. However, such protocols overlook security as a key performance indicator. Spoofing, altering, or replaying routing information can affect the entire network, making UASN vulnerable to routing attacks such as selective forwarding, sinkhole attack, Sybil attack, acknowledgement spoofing and HELLO flood attack. The lack of security against such threats is startling if it is observed that security is indeed an important requirement in many emerging civilian and military applications. In this work, the sinkhole attack prevalent among UASNs is looked at and discuss mitigation approaches that can feasibly be implemented in UnetStack3.