{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,25]],"date-time":"2026-01-25T17:25:10Z","timestamp":1769361910199,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":43,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,11]],"date-time":"2023-03-11T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1678492800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The exponentially growing concern of cyber-attacks on extremely dense underwater sensor networks (UWSNs) and the evolution of UWSNs digital threat landscape has brought novel research challenges and issues. Primarily, varied protocol evaluation under advanced persistent threats is now becoming indispensable yet very challenging. This research implements an active attack in the Adaptive Mobility of Courier Nodes in Threshold-optimized Depth-based Routing (AMCTD) protocol. A variety of attacker nodes were employed in diverse scenarios to thoroughly assess the performance of AMCTD protocol. The protocol was exhaustively evaluated both with and without active attacks with benchmark evaluation metrics such as end-to-end delay, throughput, transmission loss, number of active nodes and energy tax. The preliminary research findings show that active attack drastically lowers the AMCTD protocol\u2019s performance (i.e., active attack reduces the number of active nodes by up to 10%, reduces throughput by up to 6%, increases transmission loss by 7%, raises energy tax by 25%, and increases end-to-end delay by 20%).<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s23063044","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,13]],"date-time":"2023-03-13T03:28:33Z","timestamp":1678678113000},"page":"3044","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":11,"title":["Analyzing the Impact of Active Attack on the Performance of the AMCTD Protocol in Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"23","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7580-6007","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Khalid","family":"Saeed","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University, Sheringal Dir Upper 18000, Pakistan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2274-6770","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Wajeeha","family":"Khalil","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science & Information Technology, University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar 25000, Pakistan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7222-2433","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ahmad Sami","family":"Al-Shamayleh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Networks and Cybersecurity, Faculty of Information Technology, Al-Ahliyya Amman University, Amman 19328, Jordan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7863-3746","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Iftikhar","family":"Ahmad","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science & Information Technology, University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar 25000, Pakistan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8370-9290","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Adnan","family":"Akhunzada","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computing & IT, University of Doha for Science and Technology, Doha P.O. Box 24449, Qatar"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4633-5020","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Salman Z.","family":"ALharethi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information System, College of Computers and Information Systems, Umm AL-Qura University, Al-lith 28434, Saudi Arabia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4388-020X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Abdullah","family":"Gani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,11]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"56","DOI":"10.1016\/j.comcom.2021.03.020","article-title":"Collision-free and low delay MAC protocol based on multi-level quorum system in underwater wireless sensor networks","volume":"173","author":"Sun","year":"2021","journal-title":"Comput. 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