Byzantine Attack and Defense in Cognitive Radio Networks: A Survey

TL;DR

This survey comprehensively reviews recent advances in Byzantine attack and defense strategies in cooperative spectrum sensing for cognitive radio networks, highlighting vulnerabilities, defense algorithms, and future research directions.

Contribution

It provides a detailed taxonomy of Byzantine attacks, analyzes attack-defense dynamics, and offers an in-depth tutorial on state-of-the-art defense schemes in CRNs.

Findings

Classified Byzantine attack behaviors and parameters.

Reviewed defense algorithms for homogeneous and heterogeneous scenarios.

Identified key challenges and future research directions.

Abstract

The Byzantine attack in cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS), also known as the spectrum sensing data falsification (SSDF) attack in the literature, is one of the key adversaries to the success of cognitive radio networks (CRNs). In the past couple of years, the research on the Byzantine attack and defense strategies has gained worldwide increasing attention. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey and tutorial on the recent advances in the Byzantine attack and defense for CSS in CRNs. Specifically, we first briefly present the preliminaries of CSS for general readers, including signal detection techniques, hypothesis testing, and data fusion. Second, we analyze the spear and shield relation between Byzantine attack and defense from three aspects: the vulnerability of CSS to attack, the obstacles in CSS to defense, and the games between attack and defense. Then, we propose a taxonomy of the existing Byzantine attack behaviors and elaborate on the corresponding attack parameters, which determine where, who, how, and when to launch attacks. Next, from the perspectives of homogeneous or heterogeneous scenarios, we classify the existing defense algorithms, and provide an in-depth tutorial on the state-of-the-art Byzantine defense schemes, commonly known as robust or secure CSS in the literature. Furthermore, we highlight the unsolved research challenges and depict the future research directions.