Journal of Communications Vol. 9, No.

12, December 2014

The Security of Physical Layer in Cognitive Radio

Networks
Yi-cheng Yu, Liang Hu, Hong-tu Li, Yuan-mo Zhang, Fang-ming Wu, and Jian-feng Chu*
Jilin University, Chang Chun 130012, China
Email: [email protected]; {hul, chujf}@jlu.edu.cn; [email protected]; [email protected];
[email protected]

Abstract —Cognitive Radio (CR) is a novel technology that communication system that is aware of its surrounding
promises to solve the lack of spectrum by allowing secondary environment, and uses the methodology of
users to use licensed band, so that they can coexist with primary understanding-by-building to learn from the environment
users without causing interference to their communications.
and adapt its internal states to statistical variations in the
With the development of CR, extending to the level of network,
cognitive radio networks (CRNs) emerge as the times require. incoming RF stimuli by making corresponding changes in
Nowadays the operational aspects of CRN are being explored certain operating parameters in real time, with two
vigorously, and several potential security challenges for primary objectives in mind: highly reliable
cognitive radio have gained lots of attention. In this paper, we communication, whenever and wherever needed, and
explore the security issues on physical layer for cognitive radio efficient utilization of the radio spectrum" [15]. In 2008,
networks. First, we give a brief overview of the CRNs, then we
Chen et al. stated that cognitive radios could take the
review several existing secure threats to the physical layer in
CRNs and we propose a new kind of security problem. Next, we opportunity to make communication with the spectrum
discuss the related countermeasures on how to defend against holes in order to successfully facilitate useful services
these attacks. Subsequently, we conduct an evaluation of these and applications [16].
countermeasures, and make some future works for secure CRNs. With the development of cognitive radio, extending to
At last, we make the conclusion. the level of network, the cognitive radio network can
Index Terms—Cognitive radio networks, physical layer, utilize idle licensed spectrum, thereby improving the
security threats, countermeasures against attacks, primary users’ utilization of spectrum resources to meet the demand for
location attack more spectrum for wireless users. Because of the physical
characteristics of CRNs where various unknown wireless
devices are allowed to opportunistically access the
I. INTRODUCTION licensed spectrum, several types of attacks on physical
Due to the rapid development of wireless layer in CRNs has been attracting continuously growing
communication, the fixed spectrum allocation cannot attention. And we need to take security measures to
meet the demand for more and more users. In view of this, combat attacks launched by malicious attackers. We then
the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) approves present these attacks on physical layer in CRNs and
new rules to allow unlicensed users to utilize the evaluate corresponding countermeasures showing their
spectrum reserved for wireless broadband services in advantages and disadvantages.
2010, and Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs) have been The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In
proposed as a strong candidate to solve the problem. The Section 2, we present an overview of CRNs. Section 3
concept of Cognitive Radio (CR) was first pioneered by addresses the different types of secure threats on physical
the Joseph Mitola from software defined radio (SDR) in layer in CRNs. And we discuss and evaluate the
1999 [1], and Mitola pointed out that cognitive radio is a countermeasures against these attacks on physical layer in
special extension of software radio and more flexibility Section 4. Subsequently, we make some future works for
than software radio. secure CRNs in Section 5. In Section 6, we make the
Cognitive radio is a new research area for wireless conclusion.
communication [2]-[6], and lots of scholars have
researched in this field in recent years [7]-[14]. In 2005, II. BRIEF OVERVIEW OF CRNS
Haykins propsed a definition of cognitive radio, he hold
that cognitive radio is an intelligent wireless A. The Architecture of CRNs
There are various kinds of communications in CRNs,
which can be viewed as types of heterogeneous networks.
Manuscript received August 24, 2014; revised December 25, 2013.
This work was supported by the Deep exploration instrumentation In CRNs, there are three basic components: mobile
and equipment development (SinoProbe-09-01-03) under Grant station (MS), base station/access point (BS/AP) and
No.201011078. backbone/core networks. To improve the entire network
Corresponding author email: [email protected].
doi:10.12720/jcm.9.12.916-922 utilization effectively, three different architectures are

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comprised of these three basic components: Infrastructure, the wireless environment network. Next fusion centers
Ad-Hoc and Mesh [16]. make intelligent analysis. Then base stations make
An infrastructure CRN has a central network entity, optimal decisions to make re-configuration. Last
such as a BS in cellular networks or an AP in wireless cognitive users take advantage of the spectrum resources
local area networks (LANs). An MS can access a BS/AP according to the decision result, the entire process is
only in a one-hop manner. MSs in same cell called "cognitive cycle", which is first proposed by
communicate with each other through the BS/AP and Joseph Mitola in 1999 [1].
communications between devices in different cells are As shown in Fig. 4, cognitive cycle is composed of
routed by the BS/AP, as shown in Fig. 1. spectrum sensing, analysis, decision-making and
communication. In network-centric CRNs, cognitive
Backbone/Core Networks
users sense spectrum of the wireless environment, then
upload the data to fusion centers, according to the
received data, which make analysis to obtain the list of
idle channels and inform base stations. When cognitive
BS/AP users request for allocation of available channels, base
BS/AP stations make decisions to assign channels to them
MS MS
MS
according to certain rules. And cognitive users can
MS
communicate by the assigned channels. In distributed
CRNs, cognitive users sense the spectrum of the wireless
Fig. 1. Infrastructure architecture.
environment, then transmit the data to other users. So
In Ad-Hoc architecture, CRNs are formed by devices each of cognitive users could get the same data and reach
without infrastructure support. MSs can set up links a same list of the available spectrum. And, in accordance
between each other with different communication with certain competitive mechanism of resource
protocols. Each MS is responsible for determining its allocation, available channels would be assigned to
next events based on the local information that it observes. cognitive users for communication.
MS cannot predict the influence of its actions on the
entire network based on its local observation, so it is Spectrum Hole
Sensing
important to design cooperation schemes for exchanging Information
information from other MSs, as shown in Fig. 2.
Radio Feedback
Environment Analysis
MS

Channel
Feedback
MS Decision Capacity
MS Communication Making

MS
MS Assigned
MS Channel

Fig. 2. Ad-Hoc architecture. Fig. 4. The cognitive cycle.

Mesh architecture is basically a combination of

infrastructure and ad hoc.MSs are allowed to connect to III. PHYSICAL LAYER SECURE THREATS IN CRNS
the BS/AP directly or through other neighboring MSs as
multi-hop relay nodes, as shown in Fig. 3. A. Primary User Emulation Attack
In CRNs, a secondary user need to detect the primary
MS
user is active or not when he tries to occupy a specific
MS channel. And he is allowed to use the specific band while
it’s not occupied by a primary user. Once the presence of
BS/AP a primary user is detected, the secondary user should
BS/AP switch channels immediately to an idle channel [17, 18].
BS/AP
If the secondary user detects the identical band is
MS
MS
MS occupied by another secondary user, spectrum sharing
MS MS mechanisms should be used in order to achieve spectrum
MS
fairly.
Fig. 3. Mesh architecture. A primary user emulation (PUE) attacker may disguise
himself as a primary user by transmitting special signals
B. The Cognitive Cycle in the licensed band, thus leading to other secondary
In network-centric CRNs (such as infrastructure users mistakenly believe primary user’s existing. The
architecture), Cognitive radio nodes sense spectrum of secondary users who regard the attackers as primary users

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need to give up accessing the band. Therefore, the attack CRNs, sensing terminals learn the history, feedback and
would succeed in preventing secondary users from adjust radio parameters according to current environment
accessing this channel. Up to now, there exist several in the process of spectrum sensing, analysis, decision-
types of PUE attacks [19], including selfish PUE attack, making and communication.
malicious PUE attack and some more complicated PUE In a learning attack (LA) [21], learning radio learns
attacks. In a selfish PUE attack, two attackers establish an false sensory input provided by attacks. And these wrong
appropriative link between them simultaneously to ideas about the transmission schemes would be studied
increase their share of the spectrum resources. In a all the way. This would exert long-term effects on
malicious PUE attack, the attacker’s goal is to prevent the subsequent operations, and it can’t guarantee the best fit
transmission of the secondary users without using the with the actual network environment. Usually, learning
vacant channel. And in some more complicated PUE attack would be launched combining with other types of
attacks, malicious node is capable of attacking the attacks such as PUE attacks and OFA attacks.
network only when the primary user is off, so that they
D. Jamming
can save energy to do more effective attacks. Fig. 5
shows the PUE attack in network-centric CRNs. Because of the available channel’s open, malicious
nodes may randomly attack some available channels by
jamming. There by, interrupting the communication
Malicious
Malicious user
user Sensing
Sensing Terminal
Terminal between CRs. The malicious node may continuously
transmit high-power signals on multiple channels. At this
Final spectrum
sensing result time, the user is assigned to an idle channel, but the
Sensing
Sensing Terminal
Terminal
Fusion
normal communication can not be performed. When
Fusion center
center
Multiple CRs are under jamming attacks in the same
Primary
Primary user
user channel, they would feedback the experience of poor
Sensing
Sensing Terminal
Terminal
quality to BS. This would reduce the allocation for this
Fig. 5. Primary user emulation attack in network-centric CRNs. channel, so that a malicious user can communicate with
this channel [22].
B. Objective Function Attack
Cognitive radio is flexible, and is capable of sensing
the external environment, learning from the history, and
making intelligent decisions to adapt to the changing
environment [20], The cognitive engine in the adaptive
cognitive radio has the ability to tune many radio
parameters to meet specific requirements such as high Attacker A PU Attacker B
transmission data rate, low delay, high security level and
low power consumption. Such radio parameters include
bandwidth, power, modulation type, coding rate, MAC
protocol, routing schemes, encryption mechanisms, and
frame size [21]. These parameters are calculated by (1) Method A

solving one or more objective functions, however, some

objective function are directly related to the inputs of
users in the channel.
When cognitive engine is running to calculate the radio
parameters appropriate to the current environment, the
attacker can make the results tailored and biased through Attacker A

same way. The attack is called objective function attack

(OFA) [21] and the process is shown in Fig. 6.
Attacker A PU
Sub-goal object

fuse
Parameters
Sub-goal
Sub-goal object Ultimate object
setting
optimize
.
.
.
Sub-goal object (2) Method B
Attacker
Fig. 7. Primary users’ location attack.
Fig. 6. Objective function attack.
E. Eavesdropping
C. Learning Attack In an eavesdropping attack, a malicious node would
Cognitive radio is smart, intelligent and cognitive. In listen to the transmission of the legitimate users, fusion

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 Journal of Communications Vol. 9, No. 12, December 2014

center and base station for obtaining some information detect PUE attack. However, this method has strict
about available channel. And the attacker may calculate requirements on the primary user. A primary user should
channels which would be switched according to the be located at some distance from all the users, and
algorithm of channel selection. Eavesdropping itself does position fixing.
not have a negative effect on cognitive radio network. In 2012, Yuan et al. proposed a defense strategy
However, as an assistence to achieve the purpose of against the PUE attack in CRNs using belief propagation
attackers, it’s the basis of other attacks. [26]. In their scheme, each secondary user calculates the
local function and the compatibility function, computes
F. Primary Users’ Location Attack
the messages, exchanges messages with the neighboring
In addition to the secure threats above have been users, and calculates the beliefs until convergence. Then,
proposed, we propose a new kind of attack which can
the PUE attacker would be detected, and all the
obtain the location of primary users, thereby launching a
secondary users in the network would be notified in a
direct physical attack on the equipment.
broadcast way about the characteristics of the attacker’s
In CRNs, each user can detect the signal emitted by
signal. Simulation results show that this approach
primary user, an attacker can calculate the range of the
converges quickly, and is effective to detect the PUE
distance between the primary user and itself according to
attack.
the strength of the signal. When multiple attackers
estimate the position of the primary user with this method, B. Defending Against Objective Function Attack
they can get a crossover region to narrow down the area The research on objective function attack is not mature,
where the primary user is located in, as shown in Method no good solution has been suggested to defend against it.
A in Fig. 7. Meanwhile, the attackers can narrow the In [31], Olga León et al. suggested defining threshold
scope further by their mobility, and ultimately get the values for every updatable radio parameter and only
primary user's location as shown in Method B in Fig. 7. when the parameters meet the thresholds can
According to the location of primary user, the attacker communication start. However, there is no mature
can find the primary user and launch a physical attack on scheme with this method.
it directly, which would make the primary user disable. In 2011, Pei et al. proposed an appropriate proposal
called MOP (Multi-objective programming model) [32].
IV. COUNTERMEASURES AGAINST ATTACKS ABOVE
After attackers obtain all the parameters, secondary users
In this section we will discuss the schemes against detect them and compare them with fitness value with
secure threats mentioned above, we first list the recent MOP to decide whether attackers exist. If so, then
countermeasures and then evaluate them. secondary user readjusts the tampered parameters to
optimal settings. This scheme is able to detect the specific
A. Defending Against PUE Attack
objective function which is tampered, and make
To defend against PUE attacks, the identity of the reasonable regulation. Even if attackers obtain the
transmitting source needs to be identified, and many parameters, they cannot tamper the parameters. So this
solutions have been proposed to determine the identity of scheme can effectively resist OFA if MOP is security.
the signal source [23]-[25], [27]-[30].
Chen et al. successively proposed several solutions to C. Defending Against Learning Attack
defend against PUE attack: Distance Ratio Test (DRT) Some suggestions have been made to defend against
[23], Distance Difference Test (DDT) [23] and learning attacks [21]. First, the learning results must
Localization-based Defense (LocDef) [24]. In these always be under constant reevaluation. A feedback loop
schemes, secondary users determine whether the signal is should constantly be updating learned relationships
transmitted by primary users by estimating the position of between cognitive radio inputs and outputs. Second, there
the signal source and observing the sign's characteristics. should be a truly controlled environment during the
They employ RSS-based localization that exploits the learning phases, which means no adversarial signals are
relationship between signal strength and a transmitter present during the learning phase. Third, the action which
location to obtain the location of the signal. However, breaks to some basic theoretic results should not be
these solutions could only be applied to the CRNs in exploited. Fourth, cognitive radios had better make use of
which primary user's location is fixed, but the networks group learning instead of individual learning. Therefore
where mobile primary users cannot be applied. the attacker cannot launch a learning attack so easily.
Jin et al. presented an analysis using Fenton’s
approximation and Wald’s sequential probability ratio D. Defending Against Jamming
test (WSPRT) to detect PUE attack [25]. They considered To mitigate the jamming attacks, several solutions
a fading wireless environment and derived expressions have been proposed [33]-[39]. Secondary users need to
for the probability of successful PUE attack employing detect that a jamming attack really exists in order to
Fenton’s approximation. Then they made use of Markov counter jamming attacks. In [33] the author suggested
inequality to provide a lower bound on the probability of collecting enough data of the noise to detect jamming
successful PUE attack. Finally, WSPRT was exploited to attacks. So secondary users can differentiate the

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interference of an attacker from normal noise when convex max-min problem to maximize secrecy capacity
attackers try to jam secondary users and transmit large without interfering with primary users. The maximum
power interference. Spread spectrum (SS) [34] and achievable secrecy rate can be obtained by optimizing the
frequency hopping (FH) [35] techniques also turn out to transmit covariance matrix in the case of Gaussian input.
be effective against jamming attacks. SS makes the signal Algorithms were proposed to compute the maximum
more robust to interference by spreading it over a large achievable secrecy rate for the case of single-antenna
frequency band. In the scheme using FH, Whenever the eavesdroppers, and bounds on the achievable secrecy rate
secondary users find the jamming attack, they would were obtained for general cases with multi-antenna
switch to other channels that are not jammed with their secrecy and eavesdropper receivers. Secrecy rate can be
high switching ability. FH is capable of reducing the improved in the scheme.
probability that the frequency involved in the current
F. Defending Against Primary Users’ Location Attack
communication is targeted by the jammer.
Since attackers estimate the range of the distance
E. Defending Against Eavesdropping between primary user and themselves according to the
There is still no perfect solution to effectively resist strength of the signal, for defending against this kind of
learning attack. Zhang et al. proposed an idea employing attack, the signal’s strength and the distance between
power control algorithms to increase the rate among the them should not have a linear relationship. To our point
legitimate users while decreasing the rate to the of view, primary users can resist the attacks by changing
eavesdroppers [40]. In this scheme, secondary users the intensity of signals irregularly.
exploit multiple input multiple output (MIMO)
G. The Evaluation of the Countermeasures
transmission, primary users employ a single antenna, and
eavesdroppers can use either multiple antennas or a single In Table I, we present the evaluation of the attacks
antenna. They studied the achievable rates of the MIMO countermeasures of the physical layer.
secrecy rate between secondary users, and formed a non-
TABLE I: PHYSICAL LAYER ATTACKS, COUNTERMEASURES AND EVALUATIONS IN CRNS

Attack Countermeasure Evaluation

Secondary users can detect PUE attack in the

process of spectrum sensing using this method,
Distance Ratio Test (DRT) [23]
but the solution could only be applied to the
CRNs in which primary user's location is fixed
Distance Difference Test (DDT) [23] Be identical to DRT

PUE Localization-based Defense (LocDef) [24] Be identical to DRT

Secondary user can detect PUE attack alone,
Use Fenton’s approximation and Wald’s sequential
but primary users should be located at some
probability ratio test (WSPRT) to detect PUE attack
distance from all the users, and position is
[25]
fixed
The solution converges quickly, and is
Use belief propagation [26]
effective to detect the PUE attacker
Define threshold values for every updatable radio It is important to set the thresholds in this
parameter and only the parameters meet the scheme, and the fixed thresholds may be
OFA thresholds can communication start [31] unreasonable
If the MOP is secure, this scheme can
MOP (Multi-objective programming model) [32]
effectively resist OFA
The learning results must always be reevaluated The suggestion can defend the attack to a
LA
over time [21] certain extent
Collect enough data of the noise to detect jamming It is hard to define the appropriate amount of
attacks [33] data should be exploited to build the model
Jamming SS makes the signal more robust to
Spread spectrum (SS) [34]
interference
Frequency hopping (FH) [35] Frequency hopping is good for cognitive radios

Eavesdropping Power control [40] Secrecy rate can be improved

Primary Users’ Location Attack Changing the intensity of signals irregularly Location information can be protected

 The current schemes are designed for resisting a

V. THE FUTURE WORKS FOR THE SECURE CRNS certain attack on physical layer in CRNs. Even if the
scheme can effectively resist a certain attack, it cannot
In this section, we focus on the future works of the
security of the physical layer in CRNs to make cognitive withstand other attacks on physical layer. The next
radio networks safer and work more effectively. step, it is vital to establish a sound scheme to resist all
of attacks.

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radios networks,” in Proc. Military Communications Conference,
2012, pp. 1-6.
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[39] L. Zhang, Q. Pei, and H. Li, “Anti-jamming scheme based on zero Fang-ming Wu received his B.S. degree from the PLA Information
pre-shared secret in cognitive radio network,” in Proc. Eighth Engineering University in 2007. He is currently pursuing in the College
International Conference on Computational Intelligence and of Computer Science and Technology, Jilin University. His research
Security, IEEE, 2012, pp. 670-673. interest is the communication of WSN, computer networks and
[40] L. Zhang, R. Zhang, Y. C. Liang, et al., “On the relationship
information security.
between the multi-antenna secrecy communications and cognitive
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1877-1886, 2010.
Jian-feng Chu was born in 1978, Ph.D., Now
Yi-Cheng Yu was born in Fujian, China in
he is the teacher of the College of Computer
1990. He received the B.S. degree from the
Science and Technology, Jilin University,
College of Computer Science and Technology,
Changchun, China. He received the Ph.D.
Jilin University, Changchun in 2012, and he is
degree in computer structure from Jilin
currently working toward the M.S. degree at
University in 2009. His current research
Jilin University. His main research interest
interests focus on information security and
includes computer networks and information
cryptology.
security.

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