SBHA: An undetectable black hole attack on UANET in the sky

Abstract

SummaryWith their high flexibility and versatility, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have maneuvered their way into many applications. Thanks to their ability to plan and coordinate, multiple UAVs complete tasks more effectively, which boosts their popularity in battlefield surveys, formation performances, and targeted searches. However, the risk of security threats also rises alongside their popularity. The UAV ad hoc network (UANET) has endeavored to contend with such risks through the optimized link state routing (OLSR) protocol. To test the security and strength of this effort, we present a sky black hole attack (SBHA) algorithm for OLSR, which is undetectable, based on the UANET's multi‐hop routing and the OLSR's known topology. This algorithm obtains the network's maximum profits by approaching and then replacing the calculated topology center and traffic center in UANET. Because of the ever‐changing topology, SBHA aims at UANET's single central node that cannot be detected in advance. This attack is difficult to detect by UANET and therefore difficult to defend. The simulation results show that SBHA can cause greater damage to UANET compared to a traditional black hole attack, and ordinary defense algorithms cannot reduce the negative impact of SBHA on UANET. In addition, SBHA also gains UANET control, and leads to drastic changes in UAVs' movement trajectory, which has more intuitive effects.