We tackle a fundamental security problem in underwater acoustic networks (UANs). The S-box in the existing block encryption algorithm is more energy consuming and unsuitable for resources-constrained UANs. In this paper, instead of S-box, we present a lightweight, 8-round iteration block cipher algorithm for UANs communication based on chaotic theory and increase the key space by changing the number of iteration round. We further propose secure network architecture of UANs. By analysis, our algorithm can resist brute-force searches and adversarial attacks. Simulation results show that, compared with traditional AES-128 and PRESENT algorithms, our cryptographic algorithm can make a good trade-off between security and overhead, has better energy efficiency, and applies to UANs.

Secure and anonymous routing is required in many underwater acoustic network applications such as marine military. However, the characteristics of underwater acoustic networks cause existing secure scheme designed for traditional terrestrial networks to be inapplicable. This article presents a secure routing design for underwater acoustic networks. First, considering the difficulty of setting a trusted third party in underwater acoustic networks, a short signature algorithm without any online trusted third party is proposed and is used in the procedure of route setup for authentication between source and destination node pair. Analysis shows that the proposed signature scheme can resist forgery attacks effectively and improve communication security and signature efficiency. Second, a trap-door scheme in routing messages based on bilinear map is presented, which achieves anonymity of communication nodes to forwarding nodes. Finally, the anonymity of intermediate nodes in the routing path is also realized by encoding their session ID. Simulation results show the secure routing scheme has moderate network performance under the premise of secure communication.

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With the development of wireless networks and increasingly interest of people in underwater resources and environment, UWSNs are being paid more and more attention. Because of the characteristics of underwater channel and acoustic signal, the protocols used in the terrestrial networks cannot be directly used in UWSNs. In this paper, a reliable and energy-efficient routing protocol based on SHS and coding, called RSHSC, is proposed. Firstly, regular nodes are assigned to cluster heads according to simplified harmony search algorithm. Secondly, partial network encoding is introduced and the next two-hop information is considered when data packets are transmitted to sink nodes from the source node. Only the best next-hop forwards data packets. All data packets from neighbor nodes are used for decoding. Thirdly, two schemes of updating routing are designed and compared. Lastly, extensive simulations prove RSHSC is effective in improving reliability and decreasing energy consumption.

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