A Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithm for Underwater Acoustic Networks

Abstract

Underwater images are being utilised to detect a variety of key resources, such as items, minerals, and rare metals. We can send underwater images across a network since the Internet is so widely accessible. There is a need to send underwater images across underwater acoustic networks securely since they carry crucial information (UAN). To preserve data integrity and confidentiality, UANs need security techniques and algorithms. The security technology currently in use for land-based wireless sensor networks cannot be immediately adapted to UANs due to the differences in communication channels and physical conditions. The cryptographic technique for UANs is faced with several difficulties as a result of these additional characteristics. In this paper we are proposing an encryption algorithm of secure transmission of underwater images over the UANs. This algorithm is based on a confusion-diffusion architecture utilising the 2D Exponential-Cosine transform and DNA Encoding operations. The Security Study demonstrates its high degree of security and its ability to encrypt various colour images into cipher-images that are impossible to decipher.