Security Issues in Cognitive Radio: A Review

Electromagnetic spectrum is a scarce, important and a very useful resource. However, this resource has not been utilized effectively or in other words most of the spectrum remains vacant. Due to fixed or licensed spectrum allocation the spectrum remains vacant for a considerable amount of time. Cognitive radio, a wireless and an intelligent technology was proposed by Joseph Mitola to make efficient use of spectrum. The use of EM wave as a transmission medium makes security a major concern in Cognitive Radio as these are easily susceptible to attacks. Also, being a flexible wireless network technology it is susceptible to traditional threats as well as unique attacks which will have an adverse effects on its performance. This paper introduces the Cognitive Radio technology and mainly focuses on security issues related to it. Further, we present a layered classification of security issues of this exciting area of communication technology.