Title: Security challenges in cognitive radio network and defending against Byzantine attack: a survey

Authors: Sumit Kar; Srinivas Sethi; Manmath Kumar Bhuyan

Addresses: Department of Computer Science Engineering and Application, Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang, Odisha – 759146, India ' Department of Computer Science Engineering and Application, Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang, Odisha – 759146, India ' Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Bhadrak Institute of Engineering and Technology, Odisha – 756113, India

Abstract: Wireless applications have been growing rapidly in the past years, leading to the problem of spectrum scarcity. Cognitive radio network (CRN) is an emerging technology which can provide a promising solution to resolve this spectrum scarcity problem in wireless communication. However, the security concerns in cognitive radio (CR) is an unavoidable issue, since it introduces significant new classes of threats due to its unique characteristics and functioning techniques and also has received more attention by the researchers recently. In this paper, we provide a brief overview of CRN technology and analyse its associated security vulnerabilities and discuss a number of available solutions for countering those threats. We identify the security threats based on the targeted open system interconnection (OSI) layer and classified those into traditional wireless threats and CRN specific threats. The paper will also focus on Byzantine attack or spectrum sensing data falsification (SSDF) attack, which is a common CRN specific threat and reviewed the distinguished proposed techniques by research community to detect and isolation of such attack. Finally, a road-map for future research is addressed.

Keywords: cognitive radio networks; CRNs; network security; Byzantine attacks; dynamic spectrum access; DSA; spectrum sensing data falsification; SSDF attacks; CRN specific threats; security vulnerabilities; open system interconnection; OSI layer; wireless threats.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCNDS.2016.079098

International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems, 2016 Vol.17 No.2, pp.120 - 146

Received: 16 Mar 2015
Accepted: 17 May 2016
Published online: 12 Sep 2016 *

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