An empirical measurement of jamming attacks in CSS Cognitive Radio networks

Cognitive Radio networks (CRN) are capable of providing a solution to the spectrum shortage problem. With diverse application domains ranging from distance education to government-delivered essential services, the task of mitigating malicious attacks, especially jamming, in this emerging network is challenging. This is because potential attackers could be operating as Cognitive Radios themselves, and as a result are capable of preying on the adaptable and reconfigurable features of CRN with the intent of causing serious denial of service to the users of the network. In addition, these jammers are capable of introducing value faults in pathological cases as a result of being able to manipulate transmitted data. In this paper, we investigated through simulation the performance of CRNs operating in the presence of jamming attacks that are capable of introducing value faults. The purpose of this investigation is to be able to come up with a suitable anti-jamming strategy that is capable of mitigating jamming in CRN. Using Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) measurements we observed that these jammers are very effective in their operations as they are capable of bringing down the entire CRN when their jamming rate is just about 30%. As a result, we investigated different anti-jamming strategies and analyzed their suitabilities in combating CR operating as jammers with the intent of proposing a solution that is capable of handling all scenarios presented in these models.