Lightweight security against combined IE and SSDF attacks in cooperative spectrum sensing for cognitive radio networks

Abstract

Cognitive radio is envisaged as a promising solution to cope with the problem of spectrum scarcity. In cognitive radio networks, users can sense the medium and opportunistically use available frequency bands. Users can cooperate in order to increase the reliability of the sensing process, which is called cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS). However, cooperative paradigms are threatened by the behavior of malicious users. Two types of attacks represent the main threats for CSS network operation, namely, spectrum sensing data falsification (SSDF) and incumbent emulation (IE). These two types of attacks have received a considerable amount of attention in the literature, but they have always been studied separately. In this paper, we propose a novel mechanism based on lightweight cryptography that considers both SSDF and IE attacks combined in a CSS network for the first time. Lightweight cryptography, in contrast to previous techniques used (such as intrusion detection or reputation systems), provides higher resilience to such attacks when a high number of mobile malicious users exist, providing better energy efficiency. Analytical and simulation results show the outperformance of the proposed algorithm compared with previous mechanisms, in terms of lower false alarm probability (i.e., higher chance of using the free frequency bands) and hence better energy ratings. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A Collaborative Approach for Monitoring Nodes Behavior during Spectrum Sensing to Mitigate Multiple Attacks in Cognitive Radio Networks

“…In PUEA, an attacker may modify their air interface as it emulates the primary user's signal characteristics [15]. In this attack, other secondary users SUs will falsely determine that the frequency is in use by a legitimate primary user while in real it is not.…”

“…First, the PUEA and SSDF attacks are addressed individually (i.e., no previous work has considered both the attacks happening at the same time except for PUEA and SSDF happening simultaneously in [14,15]). It is important to address these attacks together to improve the network performance because their detrimental effects are greater when the attacks occur simultaneously.…”

“…The authors in [14,15] propose a model that takes in consideration simultaneous PUEA and SSDF active attacks. Their model is a lightweight cryptographic algorithm that provides authentication and integrity to SUs' reports.…”

“…Table 3 shows the network simulated with values used for the parameters required in our approach as in [14][15][16][17][18]. The simulation results are analyzed from two perspectives.…”

“…SSDF is a passive attack if its sensing results are not considered in making the final sensing decision. Unlike most researchers who have focused on addressing the active attacks individually, Althunibat et al and Sucasas et al have addressed mutable attacks simultaneously [14,15]. They have analyzed PUEA and SSDF in their active state.…”