If volume is any indication, cognitive radio (CR) is the “hot topic” for research and conferences in 2014. The works cited here come from a global range of conference sources and cover a range of issues including spectrum competition between CR and radar, cooperative jamming, authentication, trust manipulation, and others. These works were published or presented between January and October, 2014.

• Chauhan, K.K.; Sanger, AK.S., "Survey of Security Threats And Attacks In Cognitive Radio Networks," Electronics and Communication Systems (ICECS), 2014 International Conference on , vol., no., pp.1,5, 13-14 Feb. 2014. doi: 10.1109/ECS.2014.6892537 Number of technologies has been developed in wireless communication and there is always a common issue in this field i.e. `Security' due to its open medium of communication. Now, spectrum allocation is becoming major problem in wireless communication due to paucity of available spectrum. Cognitive radio is one of the rapidly increasing technologies in wireless communication. Cognitive radio promises to detract spectrum shortage problem by allowing unlicensed users to co-exist with licensed users in spectrum band and use it for communication while causing no interference with licensed users. Cognitive radio technology intelligently detects vacant channels and allows unlicensed users to use that one, while avoiding occupied channels optimizing the use of available spectrum. Initially research in cognitive radios focused on resource allocation, spectrum sensing and management. Parallelly, another important issue that garnered attention of researchers from academia and industry is Security. Security considerations show that the unique characteristics of cognitive radio such as spectrum sensing and sharing make it vulnerable to new class of security threats and attacks. These security threats are challenge in the deployment of CRN and meeting Quality of Service (QoS). This is a survey paper in which we identified and discussed some of the security threats and attacks in spectrum sensing and cognitive radio networks. Together with discussing security attacks, we also proposed some techniques to mitigate the effectiveness of these attacks.
  Keywords: cognitive radio; quality of service; radio networks; radio spectrum management; signal detection; telecommunication security; QoS; cognitive radio networks; quality of service; resource allocation; security attacks; security threats; spectrum allocation; spectrum sensing; spectrum sharing; unlicensed users; vacant channel detection; wireless communication; Artificial intelligence; Authentication; Computers; FCC; Jamming; Radio networks; Cognitive Radio; Cognitive Radio Networks; Dynamic Spectrum Access; Mitigation; Security Threats/Attacks (ID#:14-2883)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6892537&isnumber=6892507

• Khasawneh, M.; Agarwal, A, "A Survey On Security In Cognitive Radio Networks," Computer Science and Information Technology (CSIT), 2014 6th International Conference on, pp.64, 70, 26-27 March 2014. doi: 10.1109/CSIT.2014.6805980 Cognitive radio (CR) has been introduced to accommodate the steady increment in the spectrum demand. In CR networks, unlicensed users, which are referred to as secondary users (SUs), are allowed to dynamically access the frequency bands when licensed users which are referred to as primary users (PUs) are inactive. One important technical area that has received little attention to date in the cognitive radio system is wireless security. New classes of security threats and challenges have been introduced in the cognitive radio systems, and providing strong security may prove to be the most difficult aspect of making cognitive radio a long-term commercially-viable concept. This paper addresses the main challenges, security attacks and their mitigation techniques in cognitive radio networks. The attacks showed are organized based on the protocol layer that an attack is operating on.
  Keywords: cognitive radio; protocols; radio networks; telecommunication security; cognitive radio networks; long-term commercially-viable concept; mitigation techniques; protocol layer; security attacks; spectrum demand; wireless security; Authentication; Cognitive radio ;Linear programming; Physical layer; Protocols; Sensors; Attack; Cognitive radio; Primary User (PU);Secondary User (SU); Security (ID#:14-2884)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6805980&isnumber=6805962

• Akin, S., "Security in Cognitive Radio Networks," Information Sciences and Systems (CISS), 2014 48th Annual Conference on, pp.1,6, 19-21 March 2014. doi: 10.1109/CISS.2014.6814188 In this paper, we investigate the information-theoretic security by modeling a cognitive radio wiretap channel under quality-of-service (QoS) constraints and interference power limitations inflicted on primary users (PUs). We initially define four different transmission scenarios regarding channel sensing results and their correctness. We provide effective secure transmission rates at which a secondary eavesdropper is refrained from listening to a secondary transmitter (ST). Then, we construct a channel state transition diagram that characterizes this channel model. We obtain the effective secure capacity which describes the maximum constant buffer arrival rate under given QoS constraints. We find out the optimal transmission power policies that maximize the effective secure capacity, and then, we propose an algorithm that, in general, converges quickly to these optimal policy values. Finally, we show the performance levels and gains obtained under different channel conditions and scenarios. And, we emphasize, in particular, the significant effect of hidden-terminal problem on information-theoretic security in cognitive radios.
  Keywords: cognitive radio; information theory; quality of service; radio transmitters; radiofrequency interference; telecommunication security; QoS; channel sensing; channel state transition; cognitive radio networks; constant buffer arrival rate; hidden-terminal problem; information-theoretic security; interference power limitations; optimal policy; optimal transmission power; primary users; quality of service; secondary eavesdropper; secondary transmitter; transmission rates; wiretap channel; Cognitive radio; Fading; Interference; Quality of service; Security; Sensors; Signal to noise ratio; Cognitive radio; effective capacity; information-theoretic security; quality of service (QoS) constraints (ID#:14-2885)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6814188&isnumber=6814063

• Liu, W.; Sarkar, M.Z.I; Ratnarajah, T., "On the Security Of Cognitive Radio Networks: Cooperative Jamming With Relay Selection," Networks and Communications (EuCNC), 2014 European Conference on, pp.1,5, 23-26 June 2014. doi: 10.1109/EuCNC.2014.6882674 We consider the problem of secret communication through a relay assisted downlink cognitive interference channel in which secondary base station (SBS) is allowed to transmit simultaneously with the primary base station (PBS) over the same channel instead of waiting for an idle channel which is traditional for a cognitive radio. We propose a cooperative jamming (CJ) scheme to improve the secrecy rate where multiple relays transmit weighted jamming signals to create additional interferences in the direction of eavesdropper with the purpose of confusing it. The proposed CJ scheme is designed to cancel out interference at the secondary receiver (SR) while maintaining interference at the primary receiver (PR) under a certain threshold. Moreover, we develop an algorithm to select the effective relays which meet the target secrecy rate. Our results show that with the help of developed algorithm, a suitable CJ scheme can be designed to improve the secrecy rate at SR to meet the target secrecy rate.
  Keywords: cognitive radio; jamming; relay networks (telecommunication) ;telecommunication security; cognitive radio networks security; cooperative jamming; primary base station; primary receiver; relay assisted downlink cognitive interference channel; relay selection; secondary base station; secondary receiver; Cognitive radio; Interference; Jamming; Physical layer; Relays; Scattering; Security; Cooperative jamming; cognitive radio network; secrecy rate (ID#:14-2886)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6882674&isnumber=6882614

• Elkashlan, M.; Wang, L.; Duong, T.Q.; Karagiannidis, G.K.; Nallanathan, A, "On the Security of Cognitive Radio Networks," Vehicular Technology, IEEE Transactions on, vol. PP, no.99, pp.1, 1, September 2014. doi: 10.1109/TVT.2014.2358624 Cognitive radio has emerged as an essential recipe for future high-capacity high-coverage multi-tier hierarchical networks. Securing data transmission in these networks is of utmost importance. In this paper, we consider the cognitive wiretap channel and propose multiple antennas to secure the transmission at the physical layer, where the eavesdropper overhears the transmission from the secondary transmitter to the secondary receiver. The secondary receiver and the eavesdropper are equipped with multiple antennas, and passive eavesdropping is considered where the channel state information of the eavesdropper’s channel is not available at the secondary transmitter. We present new closedform expressions for the exact and asymptotic secrecy outage probability. Our results reveal the impact of the primary network on the secondary network in the presence of a multi-antenna wiretap channel.
  Keywords: Antennas; Cognitive radio; Interference; Radio transmitters; Receivers; Security; Signal to noise ratio (ID#:14-2887)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6901288&isnumber=4356907

• Safdar, G.A; Albermany, S.; Aslam, N.; Mansour, A; Epiphaniou, G., "Prevention Against Threats To Self Co-Existence - A Novel Authentication Protocol For Cognitive Radio Networks," Wireless and Mobile Networking Conference (WMNC), 2014 7th IFIP, pp.1, 6, 20-22 May 2014. doi: 10.1109/WMNC.2014.6878857 Cognitive radio networks are intelligent networks that can sense the environment and adapt the communication parameters accordingly. These networks find their applications in co-existence of different wireless networks, interference mitigation, and dynamic spectrum access. Unlike traditional wireless networks, cognitive radio networks additionally have their own set of unique security threats and challenges, such as selfish misbehaviours, self-coexistence, license user emulation and attacks on spectrum managers; accordingly the security protocols developed for these networks must have abilities to counter these attacks. This paper presents a novel cognitive authentication protocol, called CoG-Auth, aimed to provide security in cognitive radio networks against threats to self co-existence. CoG-Auth does not require presence of any resource enriched base stations or centralised certification authorities, thus enabling it to be applicable to both infrastructure and ad hoc cognitive radio networks. The CoG-Auth design employs key hierarchy; such as temporary keys, partial keys and session keys to fulfil the fundamental requirements of security. CoG-Auth is compared with IEEE 802.16e standard PKMv2 for performance analysis; it is shown that CoG-Auth is secure, more efficient, less computational intensive, and performs better in terms of authentication time, successful authentication and transmission rate.
  Keywords: cognitive radio; cryptographic protocols; CoG-Auth design; base stations; centralised certification authorities; cognitive radio networks; dynamic spectrum access; intelligent networks; interference mitigation; novel cognitive authentication protocol; security protocols; self co-existence; wireless networks; Authentication; Cognitive radio; Encryption; Protocols; Standards; Authentication; Cognitive Radio; Cryptography; Protocol; Security (ID#:14-2888)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6878857&isnumber=6878843

• Savas, O.; Ahn, G.S.; Deng, J., "Securing Cognitive Radio Networks Against Belief Manipulation Attacks Via Trust Management," Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS), 2014 International Conference on , vol., no., pp.158,165, 19-23 May 2014. doi: 10.1109/CTS.2014.6867559 Cognitive Radio (CR) provides cognitive, self-organizing, and reconfiguration features. When forming a network, namely Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs), these features can further provide network agility and spectrum sharing. On the other hand, they also make the network much more vulnerable than other traditional wireless networks, e.g., ad hoc wireless or sensor networks. In particular, the malicious nodes may exploit the cognitive engine of CRs, and conduct belief manipulation attacks to degrade the network performance. Traditional security methods using cryptography or authentication cannot adequately address these attacks. In this paper, we propose to use trust management for a more robust CRN operation against belief manipulation attacks. Specifically, we first study the effects of malicious behaviors to the network performance, define trust evaluation metrics to capture malicious behaviors, and illustrate how trust management strategy can help to enhance the robustness of network operations in various network configurations.
  Keywords: ad hoc networks; authorisation; cognitive radio; cryptography; radio spectrum management; CRN; ad hoc wireless; authentication; belief manipulation attacks; cognitive radio networks; cryptography; malicious nodes; network agility; security methods; sensor networks ;spectrum sharing; trust management; Ad hoc networks; Authentication; Cognitive radio; Routing; Throughput; Uncertainty; Cognitive radio networks; belief manipulation attack; cross-layer networking; trust initialization; trust management (ID#:14-2889)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6867559&isnumber=6867522

• Li Hongning; Pei Qingqi; Ma Lichuan, "Channel Selection Information Hiding Scheme For Tracking User Attack In Cognitive Radio Networks," Communications, China, vol.11, no.3, pp.125,136, March 2014. doi: 10.1109/CC.2014.6825265 For the discontinuous occupancy of primary users in cognitive radio networks (CRN), the time-varying of spectrum holes becomes more and more highlighted. In the dynamic environment, cognitive users can access channels that are not occupied by primary users, but they have to hand off to other spectrum holes to continue communication when primary users come back, which brings new security problems. Tracking user attack (TUA) is a typical attack during spectrum handoff, which will invalidate handoff by preventing user accessing, and break down the whole network. In this paper, we propose a Channel Selection Information Hiding scheme (CSIH) to defense TUA. With the proposed scheme, we can destroy the routes to the root node of the attack tree by hiding the information of channel selection and enhance the security of cognitive radio networks.
  Keywords: cognitive radio; mobility management (mobile radio); radio spectrum management; tracking; CRN; CSIH; TUA; access channels; channel selection information hiding scheme; cognitive radio networks; root node; spectrum handoff; spectrum holes; tracking user attack; Channel estimation; Cognitive radio; Communication system security; Security; Tracking; Wireless sensor networks; attack tree; handoff; tracking user attack (ID#:14-2890)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6825265&isnumber=6825249

• Jung-Min Park; Reed, J.H.; Beex, AA; Clancy, T.C.; Kumar, V.; Bahrak, B., "Security and Enforcement in Spectrum Sharing," Proceedings of the IEEE, vol.102, no.3, pp.270,281, March 2014. doi: 10.1109/JPROC.2014.2301972 When different stakeholders share a common resource, such as the case in spectrum sharing, security and enforcement become critical considerations that affect the welfare of all stakeholders. Recent advances in radio spectrum access technologies, such as cognitive radios, have made spectrum sharing a viable option for significantly improving spectrum utilization efficiency. However, those technologies have also contributed to exacerbating the difficult problems of security and enforcement. In this paper, we review some of the critical security and privacy threats that impact spectrum sharing. We propose a taxonomy for classifying the various threats, and describe representative examples for each threat category. We also discuss threat countermeasures and enforcement techniques, which are discussed in the context of two different approaches: ex ante (preventive) and ex post (punitive) enforcement.
  Keywords: cognitive radio; radio spectrum management; telecommunication security; cognitive radios; enforcement techniques; ex ante enforcement; ex post enforcement; preventive enforcement; privacy threats; punitive enforcement; radio spectrum access technologies; security; spectrum sharing ;spectrum utilization; stakeholders; taxonomy; threat category; Data privacy; Interference; Network security; Privacy; Radio spectrum management; Sensors; Cognitive radio; dynamic spectrum access ;enforcement; security; spectrum sharing (ID#:14-2891)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6732887&isnumber=6740864

• Sheng Zhong; Haifan Yao, "Towards Cheat-Proof Cooperative Relay for Cognitive Radio Networks," Parallel and Distributed Systems, IEEE Transactions on, vol.25, no.9, pp.2442, 2451, Sept. 2014 doi: 10.1109/TPDS.2013.151 In cognitive radio networks, cooperative relay is a new technology that can significantly improve spectrum efficiency. While the existing protocols for cooperative relay are very interesting and useful, there is a crucial problem that has not been investigated: Selfish users may cheat in cooperative relay, in order to benefit themselves. Here by cheating we mean the behavior of reporting misleading channel and payment information to the primary user and other secondary users. Such cheating behavior may harm other users and thus lead to poor system throughput. Given the threat of selfish users' cheating, our objective in this paper is to suppress the cheating behavior of selfish users in cooperative relay. Hence, we design the first cheat-proof scheme for cooperative relay in cognitive radio networks, and rigorously prove that under our scheme, selfish users have no incentive to cheat. Our design and analysis start in the model of strategic game for interactions among secondary users; then they are extended to the entire cooperative relay process, which is modeled as an extensive game. To make our schemes more practical, we also consider two aspects: fairness and system security. Results of extensive simulations demonstrate that our scheme suppresses cheating behavior and thus improves the system throughput in face of selfish users.
  Keywords: cognitive radio; cooperative communication; relay networks (telecommunication) ;cheat-proof cooperative relay; cognitive radio networks; fairness aspect; misleading channel; payment information; secondary users; strategic game; system security; Cognitive radio networks; cheat-proof; cooperative relay; fairness (ID#:14-2892)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6520841&isnumber=6873370

• Rocca, P.; Quanjiang Zhu; Bekele, E.T.; Shiwen Yang; Massa, A, "4-D Arrays as Enabling Technology for Cognitive Radio Systems," Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on, vol.62, no.3, pp.1102, 1116, March 2014. doi: 10.1109/TAP.2013.2288109 Time-modulation (TM) in four-dimensional (4-D) arrays is implemented by using a set of radio-frequency switches in the beam forming network to modulate, by means of periodic pulse sequences, the static excitations and thus control the antenna radiation features. The on-off reconfiguration of the switches, that can be easily implemented via software, unavoidably generates harmonic radiations that can be suitably exploited for multiple channel communication purposes. As a matter of fact, harmonic beams can be synthesized having different spatial distribution and shapes in order to receive signals arriving on the antenna from different directions. Similarly, the capability to generate a field having different frequency and spatial distribution implies that the signal transmitted by time-modulated 4-D arrays is direction-dependent. Accordingly, such a feature is also exploited to implement a secure communication scheme directly at the physical layer. Thanks to the easy software-based reconfigurability, the multiple harmonic beamforming, and the security capability, 4-D arrays can be considered as an enabling technology for future cognitive radio systems. In this paper, these potentialities of time-modulated 4-D arrays are presented and their effectiveness is supported by a set of representative numerical simulation results.
  Keywords: MIMO communication; antenna arrays; antenna radiation patterns; array signal processing; cognitive radio; modulation; telecommunication security; time-domain analysis ;antenna radiation features; beam forming network; four-dimensional arrays; future cognitive radio systems; harmonic beams ;harmonic radiations; multiple channel communication purposes; multiple harmonic beamforming; on-off reconfiguration; periodic pulse sequences; physical layer; radiofrequency switches; secure communication scheme; security capability; software-based reconfigurability; spatial distribution; static excitations; time-modulated 4D arrays time-modulation; Antenna arrays; Directive antennas; Harmonic analysis; Optimization; Radio frequency; Receiving antennas;4-D arrays; cognitive radio; harmonic beamforming; multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO); reconfigurability; secure communications; time-modulated arrays (ID#:14-2893)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6651739&isnumber=6750022

• Heuel, S.; Roessler, A, "Coexistence of S-Band radar and 4G Mobile Networks," Radar Symposium (IRS), 2014 15th Internationa , pp.1,4, 16-18 June 2014. doi: 10.1109/IRS.2014.6869236 Today's wireless network and radar systems are designed to obey a fixed spectrum assignment policy regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The assignment served well in the past, but sparse or medium utilization of some frequencies confronts heavy usage of others. This ineffective spectrum allocation contradicts the dramatically increasing need of bandwidth for security systems like radar or mobile networks and causes the evolution of intelligent radios applying dynamic spectrum access i.e. cognitive radio. To underline the demand of dynamic spectrum allocation, this paper addresses coexistence between S-Band Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar systems and LTE mobiles operating in E-UTRA Band 7. Technical requirements for radar and mobile devices operating close to each other are addressed and coexistence validated by test and measurement performed at a major German airport. It is shown that throughput reduction, increased Block Error Rate (BLER) of these mobile radios and reduction of the probability of detection Pd of security relevant S-Band radar occur in the presence of the other service.
  Keywords: Long Term Evolution; air traffic control; military radar; radio spectrum management; radiofrequency interference; 4G mobile networks; E-UTRA band 7; Federal Communications Commission; LTE mobile radio; S-band air traffic control radar systems; S-band radar; block error rate; cognitive radio; dynamic spectrum access; dynamic spectrum allocation; fixed spectrum assignment policy; ineffective spectrum allocation; intelligent radios; radar-mobile radio coexistence; security system bandwidth; wireless network; Interference; Meteorological radar; Mobile communication; Radar antennas; Radar measurements;Throughput;4G Networks; ATC Radar; ATS Radar; Coexistence; LTE; S-Band; WiMAX (ID#:14-2894)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6869236&isnumber=6869176

• Dabcevic, K.; Betancourt, A; Marcenaro, L.; Regazzoni, C.S., "A Fictitious Play-Based Game-Theoretical Approach To Alleviating Jamming Attacks For Cognitive Radios," Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), 2014 IEEE International Conference on, pp.8158,8162, 4-9 May 2014 doi: 10.1109/ICASSP.2014.6855191 On-the-fly reconfigurability capabilities and learning prospectives of Cognitive Radios inherently bring a set of new security issues. One of them is intelligent radio frequency jamming, where adversary is able to deploy advanced jamming strategies to degrade performance of the communication system. In this paper, we observe the jamming/antijamming problem from a game-theoretical perspective. A game with incomplete information on opponent's payoff and strategy is modelled as a Markov Decision Process (MDP). A variant of fictitious play learning algorithm is deployed to find optimal strategies in terms of combination of channel hopping and power alteration anti-jamming schemes.
  Keywords: {Markov processes; cognitive radio; game theory; jamming; MDP; Markov decision process; channel hopping; cognitive radios; fictitious play-based game-theoretical approach; intelligent radio frequency jamming attack; power alteration anti-jamming scheme; Cognitive radio; Games; Interference; Jamming; Radio transmitters; Stochastic processes; Markov models; anti-jamming; channel surfing; cognitive radio; fictitious play; game theory; jamming; power alteration (ID#:14-2895)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6855191&isnumber=6853544

• YuanYuan He; Evans, J.; Dey, S., "Secrecy Rate Maximization For Cooperative Overlay Cognitive Radio Networks With Artificial Noise," Communications (ICC), 2014 IEEE International Conference on, pp.1663,1668, 10-14 June 2014. doi: 10.1109/ICC.2014.6883561 We consider physical-layer security in a novel MISO cooperative overlay cognitive radio network (CRN) with a single eavesdropper. We aim to design an artificial noise (AN) aided secondary transmit strategy to maximize the joint achievable secrecy rate of both primary and secondary links, subject to a global secondary transmit power constraint and guaranteeing any transmission of secondary should at least not degrade the receive quality of primary network, under the assumption that global CSI is available. The resulting optimization problem is challenging to solve due to its non-convexity in general. A computationally efficient approximation methodology is proposed based on the semidefinite relaxation (SDR) technique and followed by a two-step alternating optimization algorithm for obtaining a local optimum for the corresponding SDR problem. This optimization algorithm consists of a one-dimensional line search and a non-convex optimization problem, which, however, through a novel reformulation, can be approximated as a convex semidefinite program (SDP). Analysis on the extension to multiple eavesdroppers scenario is also provided. Simulation results show that the proposed AN-aided joint secrecy rate maximization design (JSRMD) can significantly boost the secrecy performance over JSRMD without AN.
  Keywords: cognitive radio; concave programming; convex programming; cooperative communication; overlay networks; radio links; radio networks; telecommunication security; AN aided secondary power transmission strategy; AN-aided joint secrecy rate maximization design; JSRMD; MISO cooperative overlay CRN;SDR technique; artificial noise; computationally efficient approximation methodology; convex semidefinite relaxation program; cooperative overlay cognitive radio networks; global CSI; nonconvex optimization problem; physical layer security; primary links; secondary links; single eavesdropper; two step alternating optimization algorithm; Approximation algorithms; Approximation methods; Cognitive radio; Interference; Jamming; Optimization; Vectors; Overlay Cognitive Radio; amplify-and-forward relaying; artificial interference; physical-layer security; semidefinite relaxation (ID#:14-2896)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6883561&isnumber=6883277

• Kumar, V.; Jung-Min Park; Clancy, T.C.; Kaigui Bian, "PHY-Layer Authentication Using Hierarchical Modulation And Duobinary Signaling," Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC), 2014 International Conference on, pp.782,786, 3-6 Feb. 2014. doi: 10.1109/ICCNC.2014.6785436 In a cognitive radio network, the non-conforming behavior of rogue transmitters is a major threat to opportunistic spectrum access. One approach for facilitating spectrum enforcement and security is to require every transmitter to embed a uniquely-identifiable authentication signal in its waveform at the PHY-layer. In existing PHY-layer authentication schemes, known as blind signal superposition, the authentication/identification signal is added to the message signal as noise, which leads to a tradeoff between the message signal's signal-to-noise (SNR) and the authentication signal's SNR under the assumption of constant average transmitted power. This implies that one cannot improve the former without scarifying the latter, and vice versa. In this paper, we propose a novel PHY-layer authentication scheme called hierarchically modulated duobinary signaling for authentication (HM-DSA). HM-DSA introduces some controlled amount of inter-symbol interference (ISI) into the message signal. The redundancy induced by the addition of the controlled ISI is utilized to embed the authentication signal. Our scheme, HM-DSA, relaxes the constraint on the aforementioned tradeoff and improves the error performance of the message signal as compared to the prior art.
  Keywords: message authentication; radio spectrum management; telecommunication signalling; ISI;PHY-layer authentication; SNR; authentication-identification signal; blind signal superposition; cognitive radio network; duobinary signaling; hierarchical modulation; intersymbol interference; message signal; opportunistic spectrum access ;rogue transmitters; signal-to-noise; spectrum enforcement; spectrum security; uniquely-identifiable authentication signal; Authentication; Constellation diagram; Euclidean distance; Radio transmitters; Receivers; Signal to noise ratio (ID#:14-2897)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6785436&isnumber=6785290

• ChunSheng Xin; Song, M., "Detection of PUE Attacks in Cognitive Radio Networks Based on Signal Activity Pattern," Mobile Computing, IEEE Transactions on, vol.13, no.5, pp.1022, 1034, May 2014. doi: 10.1109/TMC.2013.121 Promising to significantly improve spectrum utilization, cognitive radio networks (CRNs) have attracted a great attention in the literature. Nevertheless, a new security threat known as the primary user emulation (PUE) attack raises a great challenge to CRNs. The PUE attack is unique to CRNs and can cause severe denial of service (DoS) to CRNs. In this paper, we propose a novel PUE detection system, termed Signal activity Pattern Acquisition and Reconstruction System. Different from current solutions of PUE detection, the proposed system does not need any a priori knowledge of primary users (PUs), and has no limitation on the type of PUs that are applicable. It acquires the activity pattern of a signal through spectrum sensing, such as the ON and OFF periods of the signal. Then it reconstructs the observed signal activity pattern through a reconstruction model. By examining the reconstruction error, the proposed system can smartly distinguish a signal activity pattern of a PU from a signal activity pattern of an attacker. Numerical results show that the proposed system has excellent performance in detecting PUE attacks.
  Keywords: cognitive radio; computer network security; radio spectrum management; CRN; DoS; PUE attacks; PUE detection system; cognitive radio networks; denial of service; primary user emulation; signal activity pattern acquisition and reconstruction system; spectrum sensing; spectrum utilization; Data models; Probability distribution; Radio transmitters; Sensors; Training; Training data; Cognitive radio network; primary user emulation attack; primary user emulation detection (ID#:14-2898)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6819890&isnumber=6819877

• Songjun Ma; Yunfeng Peng; Tao Wang; Xiaoying Gan; Feng Yang; Xinbing Wang; Guizani, M., "Detecting the Greedy Spectrum Occupancy Threat In Cognitive Radio Networks," Communications (ICC), 2014 IEEE International Conference on, pp.4939,4944, 10-14 June 2014. doi: 10.1109/ICC.2014.6884103 Recently, security of cognitive radio (CR) is becoming a severe issue. There is one kind of threat, which we call greedy spectrum occupancy threat (GSOT) in this paper, has long been ignored in previous work. In GSOT, a secondary user may selfishly occupy the spectrum for a long time, which makes other users suffer additional waiting time in queue to access the spectrum and leads to congestion or breakdown. In this paper, a queueing model is established to describe the system with greedy secondary user (GSU). Based on this model, the impacts of GSU on the system are evaluated. Numerical results indicate that the steady-state performance of the system is influenced not only by average occupancy time, but also by the number of users as well as number of channels. Since a sudden change in average occupancy time of GSU will produce dramatic performance degradation, the greedy second user prefers to increase its occupancy time in a gradual manner in case it is detected easily. Once it reaches its targeted occupancy time, the system will be in steady state, and the performance will be degraded. In order to detect such a cunning behavior as quickly as possible, we propose a wavelet based detection approach. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and quickness of the proposed approach.
  Keywords: cognitive radio; greedy algorithms; telecommunication security; wavelet transforms; CR security; GSOT; GSU; cognitive radio networks; greedy secondary user; greedy spectrum occupancy threat detection; occupancy time; steady-state performance; wavelet based detection approach; Cognitive radio; Educational institutions; Queueing analysis; Security; Steady-state; Transforms (ID#:14-2899)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6884103&isnumber=6883277

• Kabir, I; Astaneh, S.; Gazor, S., "Forensic Outlier Detection for Cognitive Radio Networks," Communications (QBSC), 2014 27th Biennial Symposium on, vol., no., pp.52, 56, 1-4 June 2014. doi: 10.1109/QBSC.2014.6841183 We consider forensic outlier detection instead of traditional outlier detection to enforce spectrum security in a Cognitive Radio Network (CRN). We investigate a CRN where a group of sensors report their local binary decisions to a Fusion Center (FC), which makes a global decision on the availability of the spectrum. To ensure the truthfulness of the sensors, we examine the reported decisions in order to determine whether a specific sensor is an outlier. We propose several optimal detectors (for known parameters) and suboptimal detectors (for the practical cases where the parameters are unknown) to detect three types of outlier sensors: 1) selfish sensor, which reports the spectrum to be occupied when locally detects its vacancy, 2) malicious sensor, which reports the spectrum to be vacant when locally detects its occupancy, 3) malfunctioning sensor, whose reports are not accurate enough (i.e., its performance is close to random guessing). We evaluate the proposed detectors by simulations. Our simulation results reveal that the proposed detectors significantly outperform the Grubb's test. Since the unknown or untrustworthy parameters are accurately estimated by the FC, the proposed suboptimal detectors do not require the knowledge of the spectrum statistics and are insensitive to the parameters reported by the suspected user. These detectors can be used by government agencies for forensic testing in policy control and abuser identification in CRNs.
  Keywords: {cognitive radio; decision theory; radio networks; sensor fusion; signal detection; telecommunication security; CRN; FC; Grubb test; abuser identification; cognitive radio networks; forensic outlier detection; forensic testing; fusion center; local binary decisions; malfunctioning sensor; malicious sensor; optimal detectors; outlier sensors; policy control; selfish sensor; spectrum security; spectrum statistics; suboptimal detectors; Availability; Cognitive radio; Detectors; Forensics; Maximum likelihood estimation; Simulation; Cognitive radio; forensic cognitive detection; outlier detection; policy enforcement; spectrum security (ID#:14-2900)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6841183&isnumber=6841165

• Alvarado, A; Scutari, G.; Jong-Shi Pang, "A New Decomposition Method for Multiuser DC-Programming and Its Applications," Signal Processing, IEEE Transactions on, vol.62, no.11, pp.2984, 2998, June1, 2014. doi: 10.1109/TSP.2014.2315167 We propose a novel decomposition framework for the distributed optimization of Difference Convex (DC)-type nonseparable sum-utility functions subject to coupling convex constraints. A major contribution of the paper is to develop for the first time a class of (inexact) best-response-like algorithms with provable convergence, where a suitably convexified version of the original DC program is iteratively solved. The main feature of the proposed successive convex approximation method is its decomposability structure across the users, which leads naturally to distributed algorithms in the primal and/or dual domain. The proposed framework is applicable to a variety of multiuser DC problems in different areas, ranging from signal processing, to communications and networking. As a case study, in the second part of the paper we focus on two examples, namely: i) a novel resource allocation problem in the emerging area of cooperative physical layer security and ii) and the renowned sum-rate maximization of MIMO Cognitive Radio networks. Our contribution in this context is to devise a class of easy-to-implement distributed algorithms with provable convergence to stationary solution of such problems. Numerical results show that the proposed distributed schemes reach performance close to (and sometimes better than) that of centralized methods.
  Keywords: MIMO communication; approximation theory; cognitive radio; convex programming; cooperative communication; distributed algorithms; iterative methods; multiuser detection; resource allocation; telecommunication security; MIMO cognitive radio networks; best-response-like algorithms; convex constraint coupling; cooperative physical layer security; decomposability structure; decomposition method; difference convex-type nonseparable sum-utility functions; distributed algorithms; distributed optimization; inexact algorithms; multiuser DC-programming; novel resource allocation problem; renowned sum-rate maximization; signal processing; successive convex approximation method; Approximation methods; Convergence; Couplings; Jamming; Linear programming; Optimization; Signal processing algorithms; Cooperative physical layer security; cognitive radio; difference convex program; distributed algorithms; successive convex approximation (ID#:14-2901)
  URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6781556&isnumber=6809867

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