Launching denial-of-service jamming attacks in underwater sensor networks

Recent surges in the development of Underwater Sensor Networks (UWSNs) have lead to a rapid acceptance of this technology in scientific, commercial, and military applications. However, there is limited work on secure communication mechanisms and techniques to protect these networks. Security mechanisms are widely studied in terrestrial networks and various defense mechanisms have been developed as safeguards. Due to the difference in communication mediums and physical environments, the existing solutions for terrestrial networks cannot be directly applied for UWSNs. In this paper, we study the effects of denial-of-service jamming attacks on UWSNs in real-world field tests. We develop our own jammer hardware and signals in order to analyze the characteristics of different jamming attack models on a network. Our tests are performed on existing commercial brand acoustic modems and an OFDM modem prototype. We show that UWSNs can be easily jammed using carefully timed attacks which are energy efficient.