Digital Signature-based authentication framework in cognitive radio networks

Abstract

Due to the rapid growth of wireless applications, Cognitive Radio (CR) has been considered as a technology to solve spectrum source deficiency by improving effective utilization of limited radio spectrum resources for future wireless communications and mobile computing. However, the unique characteristics of CRNs make security a greater challenge. Moreover, due to the dynamic characteristics of CRNs, a member of CRNs, may join or leave the network at any time. The issue of supporting secure communication in CRNs therefore becomes more serious than for conventional wireless networks. Public key encryption and signature techniques have been adopted here to ensure the security of message transmission in CRNs. This work proposes a digital signature-based trust-oriented scheme to ensure communication by identifying efficient trustworthy users in CRNs. The security analysis is analyzed to guarantee that the proposed approach achieves security proof.