Visible to the public A Secure Cross-Layer Communication Stack for Underwater Acoustic Networks

TitleA Secure Cross-Layer Communication Stack for Underwater Acoustic Networks
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2021
AuthorsTronchin, Davide, Francescon, Roberto, Campagnaro, Filippo, Signori, Alberto, Petroccia, Roberto, Pelekanakis, Konstantinos, Paglierani, Pietro, Alves, João, Zorzi, Michele
Conference NameOCEANS 2021: San Diego – Porto
Keywordscomposability, Cross Layer Security, Indexes, Instruments, Knowledge engineering, Oceans, Protocols, pubcrawl, Resiliency, security, Wireless communication
AbstractUnderwater Acoustic Networks (UANs) have long been recognized as an instrumental technology in various fields, from ocean monitoring to defense settings. Their security, though, has been scarcely investigated despite the strategic areas involved and the intrinsic vulnerability due to the broadcast nature of the wireless medium. In this work, we focus on attacks for which the attacker has partial or total knowledge of the network protocol stack. Our strategy uses a watchdog layer that allows upper layers to gather knowledge of overheard packets. In addition, a reputation system that is able to label nodes as trustful or suspicious is analyzed and evaluated via simulations. The proposed security mechanism has been implemented in the DESERT Underwater framework and a simulation study is conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed solution against resource exhaustion and sinkhole attacks.
DOI10.23919/OCEANS44145.2021.9705988
Citation Keytronchin_secure_2021