On Wormhole Attacks in Under-Water Sensor Networks: A Two-Tier Localization Approach

Under-Water Sensor Network (UWSN) is a novel networking paradigm to explore the uninhabited oceans. However, the characteristics of this new network, such as huge propagation delay, floating node mobility, and limited acoustic link capacity, are significantly different from land-based sensor networks. In this paper we show that underwater denial-of-service attack imposes great threats to any UWSN. Without proper countermeasures, underwater sensor networking is a mission impossible. We propose a localization based approach to answer the challenge. In our design, DUB and DDB, a pair of efficient single-round distance measuring schemes, are critical building blocks to realize our approach inspite of constrained node capability and floating node mobility. In addition, to cope with low/medium node mobiltiy, we propose a two-tier localization scheme to identify short-range wormholes instantly, and long-haul wormholes within a limited latency. Our simulation and implementation confirm the effectiveness of our design.