Spectrum sharing security and attacks in CRNs: a review

Cognitive Radio plays a major part in communication technology by resolving the shortage of the spectrum through usage of dynamic spectrum access and artificial intelligence characteristics. The element of spectrum sharing in cognitive radio is a fundament al approach in utilising free channels. Cooperatively communicating cognitive radio devices use the common control channel of the cognitive radio medium access control to achieve spectrum sharing. Thus, the common control channel and consequently spectrum sharing security are vital to ensuring security in the subsequent data communication among cognitive radio nodes. In addition to well known security problems in wireless networks, cognitive radio networks introduce new classes of security threats and challenges, such as licensed user emulation attacks in spectrum sensing and misbehaviours in the common control channel transactions, which degrade the overall network operation and performance. This review paper briefly presents the known threats and attacks in wireless networks before it looks into the concept of cognitive radio and its main functionality. The paper then mainly focuses on spectrum sharing security and its related challenges. Since spectrum sharing is enabled through usage of the common control channel, more attention is paid to the security of the common control channel by looking into its security threats as well as protection and detection mechanisms. Finally, the pros and cons as well as the comparisons of different CR - specific security mechanisms are presented with some open research issues and challenges

Prevention of Emulation Attack in Cognitive Radio Networks Using Integrated Authentication

Security is the prominent problem in emerging cognitive radio. Protecting the chief user’s and sub-ordinate user’s right to use the spectrum results in the correct cognitive radio operation. The major user emulation attack is a physical layer attack which disrupts the secondary user’s operation. An Advanced Encryption Standard scheme is used in this work that aims to defeat the chief User Emulation Attack by the correct detection of the chief user. The reference signal is encrypted and transmitted along with the Digital TV signal. Using a shared secret the receiver regenerates the reference and the cross association and the auto correlation are calculated which helps in the accurate detection of the chief user as well as the malicious user. The simulations were carried out and the results show that the detection scheme results in zero misdetection and also false alarm which is below a set threshold

Spectrum Sensing and Mitigation of Primary User Emulation Attack in Cognitive Radio

The overwhelming growth of wireless communication has led to spectrum shortage issues. In recent days, cognitive radio (CR) has risen as a complete solution for the issue. It is an artificial intelligence-based radio which is capable of finding the free spectrum and utilises it by adapting itself to the environment. Hence, searching of the free spectrum becomes the key task of the cognitive radio termed as spectrum sensing. Some malicious users disrupt the decision-making ability of the cognitive radio. Proper selection of the spectrum scheme and decision-making capability of the cognitive reduces the chance of colliding with the primary user. This chapter discusses the suitable spectrum sensing scheme for low noise environment and a trilayered solution to mitigate the primary user emulation attack (PUEA) in the physical layer of the cognitive radio. The tag is generated in three ways. Sequences were generated using DNA and chaotic algorithm. These sequences are then used as the initial seed value for the generation of gold codes. The output of the generator is considered as the authentication tag. This tag is used to identify the malicious user, thereby PUEA is mitigated. Threat-free environment enables the cognitive radio to come up with a precise decision about the spectrum holes

Efficient Advanced Encryption Standard for Securing Cognitive Radio Networks

During the last decade, the CR (Cognitive Radio) came into view as a major wireless technology to resolve the issue of spectrum secrecy and efficient spectrum utilization. However, due to unlicensed (secondary) users, there are various security threats to the CRN (Cognitive Radio Networks). Some malicious users may access the CRN and mislead the secondary users to vacate the occupied channel, which may stop the communication. In this work, we propose a new cryptographic-based algorithm, CRAES (Cognitive Radio-Advanced Encryption Standard), inspired by the traditional AES to secure the CRN. The data of the primary and secondary users is encrypted at the transmitter and decrypted at the receiver. Unlike the conventional AES, we introduce the data-dependent key-generation and shift-rows process. We also reduce the rounds of AES from 10-6 to improve the computational efficiency without compromising the overall security. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed CR-AES in terms of better security, reliability, and computational efficiency

Synoptic analysis techniques for intrusion detection in wireless networks

Current system administrators are missing intrusion alerts hidden by large numbers of false positives. Rather than accumulation more data to identify true alerts, we propose an intrusion detection tool that e?ectively uses select data to provide a picture of ?network health?. Our hypothesis is that by utilizing the data available at both the node and cooperative network levels we can create a synoptic picture of the network providing indications of many intrusions or other network issues. Our major contribution is to provide a revolutionary way to analyze node and network data for patterns, dependence, and e?ects that indicate network issues. We collect node and network data, combine and manipulate it, and tease out information about the state of the network. We present a method based on utilizing the number of packets sent, number of packets received, node reliability, route reliability, and entropy to develop a synoptic picture of the network health in the presence of a sinkhole and a HELLO Flood attacker. This method conserves network throughput and node energy by requiring no additional control messages to be sent between the nodes unless an attacker is suspected. We intend to show that, although the concept of an intrusion detection system is not revolutionary, the method in which we analyze the data for clues about network intrusion and performance is highly innovative

Location Aided Cooperative Detection of Primary User Emulation Attacks in Cognitive Wireless Sensor Networks Using Nonparametric Techniques

Primary user emulation (PUE) attacks are a major security challenge to cognitive wireless sensor networks (CWSNs). In this paper, we propose two variants of the PUE attack, namely, the relay and replay attacks. Such threats are conducted by malicious nodes that replicate the transmissions of a real primary user (PU), thus making them resilient to many defensive procedures. However, we show that those PUE attacks can be effectively detected by a set of cooperating secondary users (SUs), using location information and received signal strength (RSS) measurements. Two strategies for the detection of PUE relay and replay attacks are presented in the paper: parametric and nonparametric. The parametric scheme is based on the likelihood ratio test (LRT) and requires the existence of a precise path loss model for the observed RSS values. On the contrary, the nonparametric procedure is not tied to any particular propagation model; so, it does not require any calibration process and is robust to changing environmental conditions. Simulations show that the nonparametric detection approach is comparable in performance to the LRT under moderate shadowing conditions, specially in case of replay attacks

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

Secure MAC protocols for cognitive radio networks

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyWith the rapid increase in wireless devices, an effective improvement in the demand of efficient spectrum utilisation for gaining better connectivity is needed. Cognitive Radio (CR) is an emerging technology that exploits the inefficient utilisation of the unused spectrum dynamically. Since spectrum sharing is responsible for coordinating channels’ access for Cognitive Users (CUs), the Common Control Channel (CCC) is one of the existing methods used to exchange the control information between CUs. However, the unique characteristics and parameters of Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs) present several possible threats targeting spectrum sensing, spectrum management, spectrum sharing, and spectrum mobility leading to the deterioration of the network performance. Thus, protection and detection security mechanisms are essential to maintaining the CRNs. This thesis presents a novel decentralised CR MAC protocol that successfully utilises the unused portion of the licensed band. The protocol achieves improved performance; communication time and throughput when compared to two benchmark protocols. Less communication time and higher throughput are accomplished by the protocol due to performing fast switching to the selected available data channel for initiating data transmission. The proposed protocol is then extended to two different versions based on two authentication approaches applied to it; one using Digital Signature and another is based on Shared-Key. The two proposed secure protocols address the security requirements in CRNs leading to subsequent secure communication among CUs. The protocols function effectively in providing defence against several attacks related to the MAC layer such as; Spectrum Sensing Data Manipulation/Falsification, Data Tempering and Modification, Jamming attacks, Eavesdropping, Forgery and Fake control information attacks, MAC address spoofing, and unauthorised access attacks. The associated security algorithms ensure the successful secure communication between CUs in a cooperative approach. Moreover, the security protocols are investigated and analysed in terms of security flows by launching unauthorised access and modification attacks on the transmitted information. The testing results demonstrated that two protocols perform successful detection of threats and ensure secure communication in CRNs