A Survey on Primary User Emulation Detection Mechanisms in Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive radio is one of the main technologies in the wireless communications. The cognitive radio networks are composed of cognitive, spectrum-agile devices which is able to modify their network configurations according to the spectral environment. This cognitive radio provides the chance reusing portions of the spectrum temporarily for the secondary users. But security is a main issue in the cognitive radio networks. Because in the cognitive radio networks, primary user emulation attack is a harmful attack which degrades the network performance. Primary user emulation (PUE) attack is one of the harmful attacks in which an attacker sends signals as same as the primary user signals during the period of spectrum sensing so that truthful secondary users provide their consequent channels so that it causes the crucial threat in the cognitive radio network. Because of the high sensitivity of spectrum sensing the PUE attack make the serious threat in the network which degrades the network performance. So, in this survey several primary user emulation detection mechanisms are suggested to improve the network performance. The major two methods are location authentication or hardware fingerprint authentication. But these methods are not effectual in which the problem is not completely solved. These methods provide the problems in the previous methods and give idea about to develop an efficient approach. Keywords— Cognitive radio network, primary user emulation attack, primary user emulation detection.