Securing Cognitive Radio Networks against Primary User Emulation Attacks

Cognitive radio is a promising technology for next-generation wireless networks in order to efficiently utilize the limited spectrum resources and satisfy the rapidly increasing demand for wireless applications and services. Security is a very important but not well addressed issue in CR networks. In this article we focus on security problems arising from primary user emulation (PUE) attacks in CR networks. We present a comprehensive introduction to PUE attacks, from the attack rationale and its impact on CR networks, to detection and defense approaches. In order to secure CR networks against PUE attacks, a two-level database-assisted detection approach is proposed to detect such attacks. Energy detection and location verification are combined for fast and reliable detection. An admission-control-based defense approach is proposed to mitigate the performance degradation of a CR network under a PUE attack. Illustrative results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed detection and defense approaches.