Trust-based security for community-based cognitive radio networks

Cognitive Radio (CR) is considered to be a necessary mechanism to detect whether a particular segment of the radio spectrum is currently in use, and to rapidly occupy the temporarily unused spectrum without interfering with the transmissions of other users. As Cognitive Radio has dynamic properties, so a member of Cognitive Radio Networks may join or leave the network at any time. These properties mean that the issue of secure communication in CRNs becomes more critical than for other conventional wireless networks. This work thus proposes a trust-based security system for community-based CRNs. A CR node's trust value is analyzed according to its previous behavior in the network and, depending on this trust value, it is decided whether this member node can take part in the communication of CRNs. For security purposes, we have designed our model to ensure that the proposed approach is secure in different contexts. © 2012 IEEE