Author : Abhilasha Singh and Anita Sharma

With the advancement in wireless technology, there is an increasing problem of spectrum scarcity. To resolve this issue, a technology called Cognitive Radio (CR), based on Joseph Mitola’s Software Defined Radio (SDR) was introduced, in which the secondary users can sense the spectrum and utilize the licensed bands when the spectrum is not being utilized by the primary user. Because of its wireless nature, this device attracts various security threats common to all wireless technologies. In addition to these, there are various security concerns specific to CR, which these networks are vulnerable to. One of the most dominant threats among these is the Primary User Emulation Attack (PUEA). In this paper, our main purpose is to list out the various security threats faced by the cognitive radio networks and in particular, PUEA. Further, we enlist the different defense techniques which can combat the PUE attacks and ultimately compare these defense techniques on various parameters.

Keywords: Cognitive Radio, Spectrum Sensing, Primary User Emulation Attack

Article published in International Journal of Current  Engineering  and Technology, Vol.4,No.2 (April- 2014)