Security Issues and Threats in Cognitive Radio Networks

Abstract—Cognitive radio technology is the vision of pervasive wireless communications that improves the spectrum utilization and offers many social and individual benefits. The objective of the cognitive radio network technology is to utilize the unutilized spectrum by primary users and fulfill the secondary users ’ demands irrespective of time and location (any time and any place). Due to their flexibility, the cognitive radio networks are vulnerable for numerous threats and security problems that will affect the performance of the network. Little attention was given to security aspects in cognitive radio networks that include spectrum sensing (sensing primary user), attacks that threaten the network at various layers and adversary effects on performance due to the security threats. In this survey, we discuss the cognitive radio networks, problems involved in sensing and management, attacks on cognitive radio networks, attacks on various network layers, threats on cognitive radio networks, and the current security and privacy solutions available. Further, we illustrate the need of careful engineering with security checks while designing the cognitive radio networks