Dynamic spectrum access‐based cryptosystem for cognitive radio networks

Abstract

The dynamic spectrum access (DSA) paradigm of the cognitive radio (CR) contributes intrinsic security capability to the CR network by hiding information in the unpredictable spectrum access patterns. This paper formalizes the frequency hopping DSA (FH-DSA)-based cryptography by introducing the model of dynamic bit (dybit), whose state indicates both the binary value and the DSA strategy. Taking advantage of uncertainty of the dybit state, FH-based key distribution (FH-KE) mechanisms are proposed to establish secrets among communication attendants. Based on the group FH-KE (GKE), a confidentiality-oriented DSA scheme, GKE-DSA is developed to realize the FH-DSA cryptography-based secure data communication. The GKE-DSA can conceal the DSA strategy of each communication link from others while limiting the data packet collisions through GKE-based negotiation.