A Survey of the Primary User Emulation Attack in the Cognitive Radio Networks

Abstract

Cognitive Radio Technology (CRT) helps alleviate the spectrum scarcity and spectrum underutilization problems experienced by wireless networks and wireless devices by enabling the intelligent and opportunistic use of the licensed frequency band by unlicensed users. However, due to its wireless nature, it is subject to some security threats that affect the practical implementation of the CRT. In this paper, we have discussed some of the security threats affecting the protocol stack and the five layers of the Cognitive Radio Network (CRN), with a focus on the Primary User Emulation Attack (PUEA). The PUEA is one of the most common attacks on the CRN’s physical layer. In this attack, a selfish or malicious user mimics the primary user's (PU) signal features to fool the legitimate secondary users (SUs), causing the legitimate SUs to leave the available channel while the real PU is absent. Although many review papers enhanced our knowledge of the PUEA, in this paper we meld new research findings with the old ones to keep up the pace in the research community. Also, we discussed some detection and countermeasures for the PUEA in the CRN. Finally, a summary of the findings on how best to mitigate the effect of PUE attacks in the CR is presented.