Secure cooperative spectrum sensing based on energy efficiency under SSDF attack

Spectrum sensing is a premise for the realization of Cognitive Radio Networks (CRN). This paper considers Spectrum Sensing Data Falsification (SSDF) attack to CRN, where malicious users send false local spectrum sensing results in cooperative spectrum sensing, and it will result in wrong final decisions by the fusion center. A low overhead symmetric cryptographic mechanism utilizing message authentication code to authenticate the sensing data of Secondary User (SU) is proposed to resolve this problem. Moreover, in this article, the concept of energy efficiency in cooperative spectrum sensing is first introduced, and the optimal length of message authentication code is provided to maximize the energy efficiency. Simulation results verify the efficiency of this scheme, and the solution of optimal problem is also evaluated.