Securing coalitional game for distributed cooperative spectrum sensing in multi-channel cognitive radio networks

In this paper, a secure scheme is purposed for coalitional game in multi-channel cognitive radio networks. First, a distributed cooperative attack on multi-channel cooperative spectrum sensing is proposed. In the proposed attack, attackers play two coalitional games to maximize the number of invaded channels in a distributed manner. In the first game, attackers play with their fellow ones to allocate an optimal number of attackers for each channel, while in the second game, they play in the coalitions with other honest cognitive radios so as to conquer as many channels as possible. Then, a hierarchical ID-based key management scheme is proposed, where cognitive radios can only play on a certain number of requested channels and channel access for sensing is limited to the honest cognitive radios selected in the coalitional game. Simulation results show that the proposed attack can considerably decrease the number of potential channels with a low attack cost when security scheme is not considered, in addition to the energy efficiency of the proposed key management scheme. Finally, formal verification of the proposed key management scheme guarantees its immunity and effectiveness.