Attacks in Cognitive Radio Networks (CRN) - a Survey

As the wireless communication greatly depends on spectrum utilization, the increase in demand for new wireless services and their application leads to the spectrum scarcity. In order to utilize the available spectrum efficiently, "cognitive radio"- The demanding technology is introduced. It is a dynamic technology that can sense the medium, utilizes the available white spaces, for transmission by detecting its neighboring devices. The cognitive radio targets to increase the efficiency of the spectrum changes without causing any intervention to the licensed users. Since cognitive radio works in the open network space, it increases the chance of the attacker to show intervene on the spectral medium. So, the security becomes the key factor. This leads to the realization of various security threats in the cognitive radio. There are various papers covering the security issues over the threats in cognitive radio, but this paper provides an advanced survey over attacks and common threats and the possibility of securing the available spectrum from the attackers. In addition to that future scope and challenges are also addressed. This survey will help the researchers to identify the space left out and the problems to be attached related to security issues on cognitive radio.