Securing cognitive radio networks against primary user emulation attacks

CR 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 PUE attacks in CR networks. We present a comprehensive introduction to PUE attacks, from the attacking 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.