Outline

Background
Cognitive radio technology
Security issues in cognitive radios
Spectrum sensing in cognitive radios
Primary user emulation attack

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Background

Wireless communication system design

requires higher data rate and larger channel
capacity as well as better quality of service
and spectrum utilization efficiency to meet the
needs of wireless users.
Security issues have drawn much research
attention in wireless communications due to
its open air nature.

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Cognitive Radio Technology

Motivation
1. Frequency spectrum a scarce resource

Figure 1. Frequency allocation chart in US as of 2003

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Cognitive Radio Technology

Motivation

2. Spectrum access is a more significant problem than

spectrum scarcity.

Figure 2. Measurements of spectrum utilization in downtown Berkeley

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Cognitive Radio Technology

Definition
Cognitive radio [1] is a technology of wireless
communications in which a network or a user
flexibly changes its transmitting or receiving
parameters to achieve more efficient
communication performance without interfering with
licensed or unlicensed users.

1. J. Mitola and G. Maguire, Cognitive radio: Making software radios more

personal, IEEE Communication Magazine, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 1318, Aug. 1999.
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Cognitive Radio Technology

Spectrum holes

Figure 3. Illustration of spectrum holes

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Cognitive Radio Technology

Advances of cognitive radios

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J. Mitola
I. Akyildiz
S. Haykin
Q. Zhao

Cognitive Radio Technology

Main functions
Cognitive
Radios

Spectrum
Sensing

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Spectrum
Management

Spectrum
Sharing

Spectrum
Mobility

Cognitive Radio Technology

Cognitive cycle

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Security Issues in CR
Networks

Challenges
The intrinsic properties of cognitive radio
paradigm produce new threats and
challenges to wireless communications [2].

Spectrum occupancy failures; Policy failures; Location failures; Sensor

Failures; Transmitter/Receiver failures; Operating system disconnect;
Compromised cooperative CR; Common control channel attacks.
2. T. Brown and A. Sethi, Potential cognitive radio denial-of-service vulnerabilities and protection
countermeasures: A multidimensional analysis and assessment, IEEE International Conference on
Cognitive Radio Oriented Wireless Networks and Communications (CrownCom), Aug. 2007, pp. 456-464.
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Spectrum Sensing in
Cognitive Radios

Definition
Spectrum sensing is to obtain awareness
about the spectrum usage and existence of
primary users in a geographical area.

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Spectrum Sensing in
Cognitive Radios

Spectrum opportunity

Figure 4. Multiple dimensional spectrum opportunity

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Spectrum Sensing in
Cognitive Radios

Spectrum sensing
A classical signal detection problem

n(t )
x(t )
hs (t ) n(t )
channel gain
primary signal

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H0
H1

noise

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Spectrum Sensing in
Cognitive Radios

Spectrum sensing methods

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Spectrum Sensing in
Cognitive Radios
Transmitter detection
1) Matched filter detection

Advantages: Better detection performance and less time to achieve

processing gain
Disadvantages: Priori knowledge of primary signal is required (such as
pilots, preambles or synchronized messages).
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Spectrum Sensing in
Cognitive Radios
Transmitter detection
2) Energy detection

Decision statistic Y follows Chi-square distribution

H0

2
2 M ( )

H1

Y:

22M

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Spectrum Sensing in
Cognitive Radios
Transmitter detection
2) Energy detection
False alarm probability and detection probability

( M , T / 2)
Pf Pr (Y T | H 0 )
( M )
Pd Pr (Y T | H1 ) Qm ( 2 , 2T )

T is decision threshold

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Spectrum Sensing in
Cognitive Radios
Transmitter detection
3) Cyclostationary detection
Exploits built-in periodicity of modulated signals
couple with sine wave carriers, hopping sequences,
cyclic prefixes and etc.
Advantages: better performance than energy detection
Disadvantages: more computational complexity and
longer observation time.

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Spectrum Sensing in
Cognitive Radios

Cooperative detection

Figure 5. Transmitter detection problem

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Spectrum Sensing in
Cognitive
Radios
Cooperative detection

Figure 6. Cooperative detection model

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Spectrum Sensing in
Cognitive Radios

Interference temperature detection

Figure 7. Interference temperature detection

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Spectrum Sensing in
Cognitive Radios

Challenges

Primary users detection in spread spectrum

Detection capability
Decision fusion in cooperative detection
Security issues

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Primary User Emulation

Attack

Definition
An attacker occupies the unused channels
by emitting a signal with similar form as the
primary users signal so as to prevent other
secondary users from accessing the vacant
frequency bands [4].

4. R. Chen, J. Park, and J. Reed, Defense against primary user emulation attacks
in cognitive radio networks, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications,
vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 2537, Jan. 2008.
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Primary User Emulation

Attack

Detection of PUEA

Distance ratio test & distance difference test

Walds sequential probability ratio test

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