Byzantine Attack and Defense in Cognitive Radio Networks: A Survey

The Byzantine attack in cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS), also known as the spectrum sensing data falsification (SSDF) attack in the literature, is one of the key adversaries to the success of cognitive radio networks (CRNs). In the past couple of years, the research on the Byzantine attack and defense strategies has gained worldwide increasing attention. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey and tutorial on the recent advances in the Byzantine attack and defense for CSS in CRNs. Specifically, we first briefly present the preliminaries of CSS for general readers, including signal detection techniques, hypothesis testing, and data fusion. Second, we analyze the spear and shield relation between Byzantine attack and defense from three aspects: the vulnerability of CSS to attack, the obstacles in CSS to defense, and the games between attack and defense. Then, we propose a taxonomy of the existing Byzantine attack behaviors and elaborate on the corresponding attack parameters, which determine where, who, how, and when to launch attacks. Next, from the perspectives of homogeneous or heterogeneous scenarios, we classify the existing defense algorithms, and provide an in-depth tutorial on the state-of-the-art Byzantine defense schemes, commonly known as robust or secure CSS in the literature. Furthermore, we highlight the unsolved research challenges and depict the future research directions.Comment: Accepted by IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutoiral

Principles of Physical Layer Security in Multiuser Wireless Networks: A Survey

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the domain of physical layer security in multiuser wireless networks. The essential premise of physical-layer security is to enable the exchange of confidential messages over a wireless medium in the presence of unauthorized eavesdroppers without relying on higher-layer encryption. This can be achieved primarily in two ways: without the need for a secret key by intelligently designing transmit coding strategies, or by exploiting the wireless communication medium to develop secret keys over public channels. The survey begins with an overview of the foundations dating back to the pioneering work of Shannon and Wyner on information-theoretic security. We then describe the evolution of secure transmission strategies from point-to-point channels to multiple-antenna systems, followed by generalizations to multiuser broadcast, multiple-access, interference, and relay networks. Secret-key generation and establishment protocols based on physical layer mechanisms are subsequently covered. Approaches for secrecy based on channel coding design are then examined, along with a description of inter-disciplinary approaches based on game theory and stochastic geometry. The associated problem of physical-layer message authentication is also introduced briefly. The survey concludes with observations on potential research directions in this area.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, 303 refs. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1303.1609 by other authors. IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, 201

A Stochastic based Physical Layer Security in Cognitive Radio Networks: Cognitive Relay to Fusion Center

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Cognitive radio networks (CRNs) are found to be, without difficulty wide-open to external malicious threats. Secure communication is an important prerequisite for forthcoming fifth-generation (5G) systems, and CRs are not exempt. A framework for developing the accomplishable benefits of physical layer security (PLS) in an amplify-andforward cooperative spectrum sensing (AF-CSS) in a cognitive radio network (CRN) using a stochastic geometry is proposed. In the CRN the spectrum sensing data from secondary users (SU) are collected by a fusion center (FC) with the assistance of access points (AP) as cognitive relays, and when malicious eavesdropping SU are listening. In this paper we focus on the secure transmission of active APs relaying their spectrum sensing data to the FC. Closed expressions for the average secrecy rate are presented. Analytical formulations and results substantiate our analysis and demonstrate that multiple antennas at the APs is capable of improving the security of an AF-CSSCRN. The obtained numerical results also show that increasing the number of FCs, leads to an increase in the secrecy rate between the AP and its correlated FC

Identification as a deterrent for security enhancement in cognitive radio networks

Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs) are prone to emerging coexistence security threats such as Primary User Emulation Attack (PUEA). Specifically, a malicious CRN may mimic licensees’ (Primary Users (PUs)) signal characteristics to force another CRN to vacate its channels thinking that PUs have returned. While existing schemes are promising to some extent on detecting PUEAs, they are not able to prevent the attacks. In this article, we propose a PUEA Deterrent (PUED) algorithm that can provide PUEAs' commission details: offender CRNs and attacks’ time and bandwidth. There are many similarities between PUED and Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) in terms of: deterrence strategy, reason for use, surveillance characteristics, surveillance outcome, and operation site. According to the criminology literature, robust CCTV systems have shown a significant reduction in visible offences (e.g. vehicle theft), reducing crime rates by 80%. Similarly, PUED will contribute the same effectiveness in deterring PUEAs. Furthermore, providing PUEAs’ details will prevent the network’s cognitive engine from considering the attacks as real PUs, consequently avoiding devising unreliable spectrum models for the attacked channels. Extensive simulations show the effectiveness of the PUED algorithm in terms of improving CRNs’ performance

Performance Analysis of Secondary Users in Heterogeneous Cognitive Radio Network

Continuous increase in wireless subscriptions and static allocation of wireless frequency bands to the primary users (PUs) are fueling the radio frequency (RF) shortage problem. Cognitive radio network (CRN) is regarded as a solution to this problem as it utilizes the scarce RF in an opportunisticmanner to increase the spectrumefficiency. InCRN, secondary users (SUs) are allowed to access idle frequency bands opportunistically without causing harmful interference to the PUs. In CRN, the SUs determine the presence of PUs through spectrum sensing and access idle bands by means of dynamic spectrum access. Spectrum sensing techniques available in the literature do not consider mobility. One of the main objectives of this thesis is to include mobility of SUs in spectrum sensing. Furthermore, due to the physical characteristics of CRN where licensed RF bands can be dynamically accessed by various unknown wireless devices, security is a growing concern. This thesis also addresses the physical layer security issues in CRN. Performance of spectrum sensing is evaluated based on probability of misdetection and false alarm, and expected overlapping time, and performance of SUs in the presence of attackers is evaluated based on secrecy rates

Enable Reliable and Secure Data Transmission in Resource-Constrained Emerging Networks

The increasing deployment of wireless devices has connected humans and objects all around the world, benefiting our daily life and the entire society in many aspects. Achieving those connectivity motivates the emergence of different types of paradigms, such as cellular networks, large-scale Internet of Things (IoT), cognitive networks, etc. Among these networks, enabling reliable and secure data transmission requires various resources including spectrum, energy, and computational capability. However, these resources are usually limited in many scenarios, especially when the number of devices is considerably large, bringing catastrophic consequences to data transmission. For example, given the fact that most of IoT devices have limited computational abilities and inadequate security protocols, data transmission is vulnerable to various attacks such as eavesdropping and replay attacks, for which traditional security approaches are unable to address. On the other hand, in the cellular network, the ever-increasing data traffic has exacerbated the depletion of spectrum along with the energy consumption. As a result, mobile users experience significant congestion and delays when they request data from the cellular service provider, especially in many crowded areas. In this dissertation, we target on reliable and secure data transmission in resource-constrained emerging networks. The first two works investigate new security challenges in the current heterogeneous IoT environment, and then provide certain countermeasures for reliable data communication. To be specific, we identify a new physical-layer attack, the signal emulation attack, in the heterogeneous environment, such as smart home IoT. To defend against the attack, we propose two defense strategies with the help of a commonly found wireless device. In addition, to enable secure data transmission in large-scale IoT network, e.g., the industrial IoT, we apply the amply-and-forward cooperative communication to increase the secrecy capacity by incentivizing relay IoT devices. Besides security concerns in IoT network, we seek data traffic alleviation approaches to achieve reliable and energy-efficient data transmission for a group of users in the cellular network. The concept of mobile participation is introduced to assist data offloading from the base station to users in the group by leveraging the mobility of users and the social features among a group of users. Following with that, we deploy device-to-device data offloading within the group to achieve the energy efficiency at the user side while adapting to their increasing traffic demands. In the end, we consider a perpendicular topic - dynamic spectrum access (DSA) - to alleviate the spectrum scarcity issue in cognitive radio network, where the spectrum resource is limited to users. Specifically, we focus on the security concerns and further propose two physical-layer schemes to prevent spectrum misuse in DSA in both additive white Gaussian noise and fading environments

A Stochastic Method to Physical Layer Security of an Amplify-and-Forward Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Networks: Secondary User to Relay

In this paper, a framework for capitalizing on the potential benefits of physical layer security in an amplify-and-forward cooperative spectrum sensing (AF-CSS) in a cognitive radio network (CRN) using a stochastic geometry is proposed. In the CRN network the sensing data from secondary users (SUs) are collected by a fusion center (FC) with the help of access points (AP) as relays, and when malicious eavesdropping secondary users (SUs) are listening. We focus on the secure transmission of active SUs transmitting their sensing data to the AP. Closed expressions for the average secrecy rate are presented. Numerical results corroborate our analysis and show that multiple antennas at the APs can enhance the security of the AF-CSS-CRN. The obtained numerical results show that average secrecy rate between the AP and its correlated FC decreases when the number of AP is increased. Nevertheless, we find that an increase in the number of AP initially increases the overall average secrecy rate, with a perilous value at which the overall average secrecy rate then decreases. While increasing the number of active SUs, there is a decrease in the secrecy rate between the sensor and its correlated AP.Final Accepted Versio

Rogue Signal Threat on Trust-based Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs) are a next generation network that is expected to solve the wireless spectrum shortage problem, which is the shrinking of available wireless spectrum resources needed to facilitate future wireless applications. The first CRN standard, the IEEE 802.22, addresses this particular problem by allowing CRNs to share geographically unused TV spectrum to mitigate the spectrum shortage. Equipped with reasoning and learning engines, cognitive radios operate autonomously to locate unused channels to maximize its own bandwidth and Quality-of-Service (QoS). However, their increased capabilities over traditional radios introduce a new dimension of security threats. In an NSF 2009 workshop, the FCC raised the question, “What authentication mechanisms are needed to support cooperative cognitive radio networks? Are reputation-based schemes useful supplements to conventional Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) authentication protocols?” Reputation-based schemes in cognitive radio networks are a popular technique for performing robust and accurate spectrum sensing without any inter-communication with licensed networks, but the question remains on how effective they are at satisfying the FCC security requirements. Our work demonstrates that trust-based Cooperative Spectrum Sensing (CSS) protocols are vulnerable to rogue signals, which creates the illusion of inside attackers and raises the concern that such schemes are overly sensitive Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS). The erosion of the sensor reputations in trust-based CSS protocols makes CRNs vulnerable to future attacks. To counter this new threat, we introduce community detection and cluster analytics to detect and negate the impact of rogue signals on sensor reputations

Advanced Metering Infrastructure Based on Smart Meters in Smart Grid

Due to lack of situational awareness, automated analysis, poor visibility, and mechanical switches, today\u27s electric power grid has been aging and ill‐suited to the demand for electricity, which has gradually increased, in the twenty‐first century. Besides, the global climate change and the greenhouse gas emissions on the Earth caused by the electricity industries, the growing population, one‐way communication, equipment failures, energy storage problems, the capacity limitations of electricity generation, decrease in fossil fuels, and resilience problems put more stress on the existing power grid. Consequently, the smart grid (SG) has emerged to address these challenges. To realize the SG, an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) based on smart meters is the most important key