MAC Based Energy Efficiency in Cooperative Cognitive Radio Network in the Presence of Malicious Users

In cognitive radio networks, cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS) is generally adopted for improving spectrum sensing accuracy to increase spectrum utilization and avoid interference with the primaryusers.However,somemalicioussecondaryusers(SUs)mayaffecttheCSSperformancebyinducing false observation bits for fusion. The message authentication code (MAC) is a promising technique to avoid the damage from the spectrum sensing data falsi?cation (SSDF) attacks. In this paper, as both the more spectrum sensing nodes and the MAC reporting bits result in extra energy consumption, we propose an energy ef?ciency model to capture the effects of the length of MAC and the number of cooperative SUs under independent and collaborative SSDF attacks, respectively, and analyze the existence of the optimal length of MAC and the optimal number of cooperative SUs that can achieve the maximum value of energy ef?ciency, respectively. Simulation results are provided to show that the CSS scheme based on MAC can resist SSDF attacks and the accuracy of the theoretical analysis is also validated

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

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

Applications of Repeated Games in Wireless Networks: A Survey

A repeated game is an effective tool to model interactions and conflicts for players aiming to achieve their objectives in a long-term basis. Contrary to static noncooperative games that model an interaction among players in only one period, in repeated games, interactions of players repeat for multiple periods; and thus the players become aware of other players' past behaviors and their future benefits, and will adapt their behavior accordingly. In wireless networks, conflicts among wireless nodes can lead to selfish behaviors, resulting in poor network performances and detrimental individual payoffs. In this paper, we survey the applications of repeated games in different wireless networks. The main goal is to demonstrate the use of repeated games to encourage wireless nodes to cooperate, thereby improving network performances and avoiding network disruption due to selfish behaviors. Furthermore, various problems in wireless networks and variations of repeated game models together with the corresponding solutions are discussed in this survey. Finally, we outline some open issues and future research directions.Comment: 32 pages, 15 figures, 5 tables, 168 reference

A Survey on Wireless Security: Technical Challenges, Recent Advances and Future Trends

This paper examines the security vulnerabilities and threats imposed by the inherent open nature of wireless communications and to devise efficient defense mechanisms for improving the wireless network security. We first summarize the security requirements of wireless networks, including their authenticity, confidentiality, integrity and availability issues. Next, a comprehensive overview of security attacks encountered in wireless networks is presented in view of the network protocol architecture, where the potential security threats are discussed at each protocol layer. We also provide a survey of the existing security protocols and algorithms that are adopted in the existing wireless network standards, such as the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and the long-term evolution (LTE) systems. Then, we discuss the state-of-the-art in physical-layer security, which is an emerging technique of securing the open communications environment against eavesdropping attacks at the physical layer. We also introduce the family of various jamming attacks and their counter-measures, including the constant jammer, intermittent jammer, reactive jammer, adaptive jammer and intelligent jammer. Additionally, we discuss the integration of physical-layer security into existing authentication and cryptography mechanisms for further securing wireless networks. Finally, some technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are summarized and the future trends in wireless security are discussed.Comment: 36 pages. Accepted to Appear in Proceedings of the IEEE, 201

Securing Cognitive Radio Networks using blockchains

Due to the increase in industrial applications of Internet of Things (IoT), number of internet connected devices have been increased accordingly. This has resulted in big challenges in terms of accessibility, scalability, connectivity and adaptability. IoT is capable of creating connections between devices on wireless medium but the utilization of scarce spectrum in efficient manner for the establishment of these connections is the biggest concern. To accommodate spectrum allocation problem different radio technologies are being utilized. One of the most efficient technique being used is cognitive radio, which dynamically allocate the unlicensed spectrum for IoT applications. Spectrum sensing being the fundamental component of Cognitive Radio Network (CRN) is threatened by security attacks. Process of spectrum sensing is disturbed by the malicious user (MU) which attacks the primary signal detection and affects the accuracy of sensing outcome. The presence of such MU in system, sending false sensing data can degrade the performance of cognitive radios. Therefore, in this article a blockchain based method is proposed for the MU detection in network. By using this method an MU can easily be discriminated from a reliable user through cryptographic keys. The efficiency of the proposed mechanism is analyzed through proper simulations using MATLAB. Consequently, this mechanism can be deployed for the validation of participating users in the process of spectrum sensing in CRN for IoTs.publishe