Corresponding author: Tel.: +862988202859; Fax: +862988204909. E-mail address: qqpei@mail.xidian.edu.cn (Q. Pei).
Anti-jamming Scheme Based on Zero Pre-shared
Secret in Cognitive Radio Network
Lu Zhang
a
, Qingqi Pei
a
*, Hongning Li
b
a
State Key Laboratory of Integrated Service Network, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, P.R. China
b
School of Computer Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, P.R. China
Abstract
Cognitive radio (CR) is a novel technology that promises to
improve spectrum efficiency by allowing secondary users
(SUs) to dynamically access spectrum without using by
primary users. With offering great flexibility and software
reconfigurability, unsecured CR can be easily manipulated
to attack legacy users on both control and data channels. In
this paper, we explore anti-jamming schemes based on zero
pre-shared secret key on both control and data channels in
cognitive radio networks (CRN). Because of the mobility
and variation of users and spectrum, the method of
traditional pre-shared secret keys is not applied to CRN. For
control channel, we propose a scheme that can counter both
external and internal jammers, which guarantees delivery of
control information against any coalition of jammers. For
data channel, we propose a scheme that uses
cryptographically PN sequence to transmit message
segments, which is efficient both in terms of resiliency
against jammers and computation.
Keywords: cognitive radio network; zero-preshared; control
channel; data channel; anti-jamming
I. INTRODUCTION
The rapid development of wireless networks and
increase of wireless services need efficient technology to
provide spectrum. The cognitive radio network (CRN) is
one of the most promising fields for research on further
improving spectrum efficiency which are intelligent
networks that adapt to changes in their environments to
make a better use of the radio spectrum. CRN helps deal
with the shortage of spectrum by allowing secondary users
(SUs) to use primary users’ (PUs) spectrum without
interference. The advances in CRs are so significant that the
FCC is of the view that none of the other advances “holds
greater potential for literally transforming the use of
spectrum in the years to come than the development of
software-defined and cognitive or “smart” radios” [1-4].
However, CRs may be susceptible to actions which are
malicious. So to successfully deploy CRNs needs to correct
construction and maintenance of security measures to resist
attacks launched against them. The goals of attackers
include: unacceptable interference to licensed PUs, missed
opportunities for SUs, access to private data, the
modification of data and injection of false data. In the
physical layer, there are primary user emulation attack
(PUEA) and reporting false sensing data attack. In the MAC
layer, there are small-back-off-window attack and common
control channel data attack (CCDA). Furthermore, Lion
attack and many higher layer attacks against traditional
wireless networks can also apply to CRN. In this paper, we
focus on the attack which prevents SUs from being able to
access effectively to control information and
communication with each other and this is the so-called
jamming attacks on both control and data channels.
Jamming may happen in different process and different
channel in CRN. In this paper, we study jamming attack on
both control and data channel. It is vital to assure the
security of control channel because all control information
about sensing, decision and allocation is sent by the channel.
Most literature relies on one pre-defined control channel,
but it will increase costs and expose vulnerability to the
operation in CRN. Thus, novel methods to instead of using a
fixed and dedicated control channel are needed. In [5], a
way to dynamically find and manage control channels by
using of swarm intelligence is proposed. In [6], a cluster-
based architecture that allocates different channels for
control at various clusters is proposed. In [7], a framework
to provide common control channel security for co-
operatively communicating CR nodes is proposed. In this
paper, we propose a zero pre-shared secret scheme on
control channels that resists jamming attack using the
identity of accessing to CRN without pre-shared secret. On
data channel, SUs deliver the information to each other. To
secure the communication, SUs establish session key based
on pre-shared secret, but an attacker can jam the channel by
many methods such as intercepting and tampering the
message from key establishment. Thus, it is effective to
counter this problem by sharing no secrets to establish a
shared secret key. In [8], a cooperative anti-jamming
scheme is proposed to use some SUs as a compromise to
protect other SUs. However, it must regard some SUs as
medium. In [9], an uncoordinated frequency hopping
scheme is proposed to enable key establishment in the
presence of a communication jammer. However, the cost of
this method decides it unsuited to CRN. In this paper, we
propose a zero pre-shared secret scheme on data channels
that drops jammers’ destructive power using the key which
is generated by sending SUs only to transmit the partitioned
message segments without pre-shared secret and has the
same cost with the conventional spread spectrum (SS)
communication system.
2012 Eighth International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Security
978-0-7695-4896-8/12 $26.00 © 2012 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/CIS.2012.154
670