Detection of PUE attacks in cognitive radio networks based on signal activity pattern

Promising to significantly improve spectrum utilization, cognitive radio networks (CRNs) have attracted a great attention in the literature. Nevertheless, a new security threat known as the primary user emulation (PUE) attack raises a great challenge to CRNs. The PUE attack is unique to CRNs and can cause severe denial of service (DoS) to CRNs. In this paper, we propose a novel PUE detection system, termed Signal activity Pattern Acquisition and Reconstruction System. Different from current solutions of PUE detection, the proposed system does not need any a priori knowledge of primary users (PUs), and has no limitation on the type of PUs that are applicable. It acquires the activity pattern of a signal through spectrum sensing, such as the ON and OFF periods of the signal. Then it reconstructs the observed signal activity pattern through a reconstruction model. By examining the reconstruction error, the proposed system can smartly distinguish a signal activity pattern of a PU from a signal activity pattern of an attacker. Numerical results show that the proposed system has excellent performance in detecting PUE attacks.