Collaborative Research: A Multi-Layer Approach Towards Reliable Cognitive Radio Networks

This collaborative project is funded by the National Science Foundation Awards # 1443889 and 1443434

Virginia Tech: PI: Wenjing Lou, Co-PI: Thomas Hou

Rutgers Univ.: PI: Wade Trappe, Co-PI: Yanyong Zhang

Project Duration: October 1, 2014 – September 30, 2019

Project Abstract

The development of radio technologies that support efficient and reliable spectrum sharing is an enabler for utilizing the spectrum being made available through the National Broadband Plan. Software defined radios represent a promising technology that supports spectrum sharing as evidenced by the large amount of algorithms and protocols that allow for cognitive radio networks (CRNs) to be deployed. Unfortunately, the economic promise of dynamic spectrum access is easily undermined if cognitive radio users act dishonestly or maliciously, thereby subverting protocols that are founded on the cooperation of users. It is therefore important that mechanisms are developed that ensure the trustworthy operation of CRNs in the presence of potentially malicious or malfunctioning wireless nodes. The objective behind the project's research activities is to develop technological solutions that ensure that cognitive radios operate in trustworthy manner in spite of potential security threats. As a result of this research effort, it is possible for radio spectrum to be more reliably utilized, thereby ensuring that the economic opportunities associated with the radio spectrum are fairly utilized by everyone. The educational impact of the work comes from its multi-disciplinary foundation, broadening student views of wireless system design, and guiding the next generation of wireless engineer to include security and reliability in the design process.

Wireless technologies are an enabler for economic growth in the United States, and cognitive radio networks are an emerging form of wireless system that make spectrum access more available to the broader population. Unfortunately, cognitive radio systems are susceptible to threats that undermine the correct operation of their algorithms and protocols, and thus solutions that support the secure operation of cognitive radio networks are needed. This project ensures the trustworthy operation of cognitive radio networks by: 1) developing algorithms that ensure the correct operation of spectrum sensing procedures upon which spectrum access protocols rely; 2) developing traffic monitoring tools that identify improper communication activity by cognitive radio devices; and 3) developing new forms of interference-resistant communications that ensure that cognitive radio communication continues reliably in the face of interference. The research effort is inter-disciplinary, pulling from statistical tools to network traffic analysis to communications theory to support the secure operation of cognitive radio networks. The algorithms and protocols developed in this project are complemented by a systems prototyping and experimentation effort aimed at guaranteeing that the technologies developed are suitable for deployment in real wireless systems.

Project Outcome Report

Cognitive radio networks (CRNs) are next generation radio networks that take advantage of the flexible capabilities of software defined radios (SDRs) to engage in dynamic spectrum access (DSA), whereby unlicensed wireless users can opportunistically access licensed bands, as long as they do not interfere with licensed users. Although CRNs have great potential to improve radio spectrum efficiency, the high degree of programmability provided by SDRs could be used by adversaries to launch sophisticated attacks, such as false data injection and reactive jamming attacks, which can disrupt wireless communications and network services. The objective of this project is thus to develop technologies that ensure that spectrum opportunities are correctly disseminated, that spectrum is used equitably by those who have the proper rights to access bands of spectrum, and that mitigate the interference or harm that might be caused by CRN devices operating inappropriately or maliciously.

We achieved those research goals by exploring secure and reliable communication technologies via a multi-layer approach. The first layer aims to incorporate security mechanisms into fundamental CRN functions, such as secure remote device attestation techniques that will ensure trustworthy operation of the remote radio devices. Along this line, we developed a radio context attestation protocol for cognitive radio network. The proposed protocol is based on our observation that the compliance of a radio transmission depends on software configuration, radio configuration as well as the location and time of the device, which we call radio context. We believe radio context attestation, which allows the authority to verify the operational integrity of individual cognitive radio, is a fundamental security function for cognitive radio networks. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to study this important problem. Different from conventional software attestation, our proposed protocol is designed to handle dynamic configurations in cognitive radios. Furthermore, special considerations are given in the protocol design to accommodate different levels of sensitivity in spectrum databases. Besides protocol design and security analysis, we also build a prototype of the proposed system using Raspberry Pi, USRP, and Amazon AWS. Network simulation using the benchmark measurements from the prototype shows the scalability of our proposed protocol.

As no security mechanism can be 100% successful in preventing all potential threats from entering a network, the second layer provides a second line of defense by monitoring the CRN network traffic and operations in order to detect abnormal and malicious behaviors. Passive monitoring by distributed wireless sniffers has been used to strategically capture the network traffic, as the basis of automatic network diagnosis. In this project, we developed a systematic passive monitoring framework for traffic collection using a limited number of sniffers in Wi-Fi like CRNs. We jointly consider primary users’ activity and secondary users’ channel access pattern to optimize the traffic capturing strategy. In particular, we exploit a non-parametric density estimation method to learn and predict secondary users’ access patter in an online fashion, which rapidly adapts to the users’ dynamic behaviors and supports accurate estimation of merged access patterns form multiple users. We also designed near-optimal monitoring algorithms that maximizes two levels of quality of monitoring goals respectively, based on the predicated channel access patterns.

Further, highly capable cognitive radios not only enable the more efficient spectrum utilization through dynamic spectrum access, but also allow more sophisticated radio-based attacks. The third layer is thus to counteract the attacks empowered by cognitive radio technologies, such as reactive jamming attacks, which are considered the most powerful jamming attack as the attack efficiency is maximized while the risk of being detected is minimized. Along this direction, we explored the use of MIMO technology for jamming resilient OFDM communication, especially its capability to communicate against the powerful reactive jammer. We investigated the jamming strategies and their impacts on the OFDM-MIMO receivers. We developed a MIMO-based anti-jamming scheme that exploits interference cancellation and transmit precoding capabilities of MIMO technology to keep a CRN network operational even under reactive jamming attacks. Our testbed evaluation shows the destructive power of reactive jamming attack, and also validates the efficacy and efficiency of our defense mechanisms.

Publications

  • Y. Chen, S. Li, C. Li, Y. T. Hou and B. Jalaian, "To Cancel or Not to Cancel: Exploiting Interference Signal Strength in the Eigenspace for Efficient MIMO DoF Utilization," IEEE INFOCOM 2019, Apr 29-May 2, 2019, Paris, France. (PDF)
  • R. Zhang, N. Wang, N. Zhang, Z. Yan, W. Lou, and Y.T. Hou, “PriRoster: Privacy-preserving Radio Context Attestation in Cognitive Radio Networks,” IEEE DySPAN, Nov 2019, Newark, NJ. (PDF)
  • Changlai Du, “Exploring the Sensing Capability of Wireless Signals,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Virginia Tech, 2018. (PDF)
  • Brian A. Jalaian, Xu Yuan, Y. Shi, Y.T. Hou, W. Lou, S.F. Midkiff, and Venkat Dasari, “On the Integration of SIC and MIMO DoF for Interference Cancellation in Wireless Networks,” Springer Wireless Networks, vol. 24, no. 7, pp. 2357–2374, Oct 1. 2018. (PDF)
  • W. Feng, Z. Yan, H. Zhang, K. Zeng, Y. Xiao, and Y. T. Hou, “A Survey on Security, Privacy and Trust in Mobile Crowdsourcing,” IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 2971–2992, Aug. 2018. (PDF)
  • C. Du, X. Yuan, W. Lou, and Y.T. Hou, “Context-Free Fine-Grained Motion Sensing using WiFi,” 15th IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communication and Networking (IEEE SECON 2018),  Hong Kong, China, June 11-13, 2018.(PDF)
  • N. Zhang, W. Sun, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou, and W. Trappe, "ROSTER: Radio Context Attestation in Cognitive Radio Network," IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (IEEE CNS 2018), Beijing, China, May 30-Jun 1, 2018. (PDF)
  • Y. Huang, Y. Chen, Y.T. Hou, W. Lou, and J.H. Reed, “Recent Advances of LTE/WiFi Coexistence in Unlicensed Spectrum,” IEEE Network, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 107–113, March–April, 2018. (PDF)
  • X. Yuan, C. Gao, F. Tian, Y. Shi, Y. T Hou, W. Lou, W. Trappe, S.F. Midkiff, J.H. Reed, and S. Kompella, "MIMO-empowered secondary networks for efficient spectrum sharing," in Handbook of Cognitive Radio, edited by W. Zhang, Springer, 2018. (PDF)
  • C. Jiang, Y. Shi, Y.T. Hou, W. Lou, S. Kompella and S.F. Midkiff, "A General Method to Determine Asymptotic Capacity Upper Bounds for Wireless Networks", IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, vol. PP, no. 99, pp. 1–1, Nov 3. 2017.
  • Y. Huang, Y. Chen, Y.T. Hou, W. Lou, and J.H. Reed, “Recent Advances of LTE/WiFi Coexistence in Unlicensed Spectrum,” IEEE Network, vol. PP, no. 99, pp. 1–7, Oct 27, 2017.
  • X. Qin, X. Yuan, Z. Zhang, F. Tian, Y.T. Hou, and W. Lou, "On AP Assignment and Transmission Scheduling for Multi-AP 60 GHz WLAN", 14th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Systems (IEEE MASS 2017), Orlando, FL, USA, October 23-25, 2017.
  • N. Zhang, R. Zhang, Q. Yan, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou, and D. Yao, "Black Penguin: On the Feasibility of Detecting Intrusion with Homogeneous Memory," Network and Cloud Forensics Workshop, Las Vegas, NV, USA, Oct 11, 2017. Collocated with IEEE CNS 2017.
  • R. Zhang, N. Zhang, C. Du, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou, Y. Kawamoto "From Electromyogram to Password: Exploring the Privacy Impact of Wearables in Augmented Reality," ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology (TIST), vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 1-20, Oct. 2017
  • R. Zhang, N. Zhang, C. Du, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou, Y. Kawamoto "AugAuth: Shoulder-Surfing Resistant Authentication for Augmented Reality," IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC 2017), 21-25 May 2017, Paris, France.
  • W. Sun, N. Zhang, W. Lou, and Y.T. Hou, "When Gene Meets Cloud: Enabling Scalable and Efficient Range Query on Encrypted Genomic Data," IEEE INFOCOM 2017, 1-4 May 2017, Atlanta, GA, USA.
  • B. Wang, W. Song, W. Lou, and Y.T. Hou, "Privacy-Preserving Pattern Matching over Encrypted Genetic Data in Cloud Computing," IEEE INFOCOM 2017, 1-4 May 2017, Atlanta, GA, USA. 
  • X. Liu, W. Sun, W. Lou, Q. Pei, and Y. Zhang, "One-tag Checker: Message-locked Integrity Auditing on Encrypted Cloud Deduplication Storage," IEEE INFOCOM 2017, 1-4 May 2017, Atlanta, GA, USA.
  • X. Yuan, X. Qin, F. Tian, Y.T. Hou, W. Lou, S.F. Midkiff, J.H. Reed. “Coexistence Between Wi-Fi and LTE on Unlicensed Spectrum: A Human-Centric Approach,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 964–977, Apr. 2017.
  • A. Garnaev, W. Trappe, Y.T. Hou, and W. Lou, “Spectrum attacks aimed at minimizing spectrum opportunities,” in 2017 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), pp. 2092–2096.MARCH 5-9, 2017,NEW ORLEANS, USA
  • H. Zeng, Y.T. Hou, Y. Shi, W. Lou, S. Kompella, and S.F. Midkiff, “A Distributed Scheduling Algorithm for Underwater Acoustic Networks With Large Propagation Delays,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 65, no. 3, pp. 1131–1145, Mar. 2017.
  • X. Qin, H. Zeng, X. Yuan, B. Jalaian, Y.T. Hou, W. Lou, S.F. Midkiff, "Impact of Full Duplex Scheduling on End-to-end Throughput in Multi-hop Wireless Networks," IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 158–171, Jan. 2017.
  • X. Yuan, Y. Shi, X. Qin, YT. Hou, W. Lou, S. Kompella, S.F. Midkiff , J.H. Reed . “Beyond Overlay: Reaping Mutual Benefits for Primary and Secondary Networks Through Node-Level Cooperation,” IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 2–15, Jan. 2017.
  • Xu Yuan, Bran Jalaeian, Y. Thomas Hou, Wenjing Lou, Scott F. Midkiff, and Sastry Kompella, "New Coexistence and Sharing Paradigms for Multihop Secondary Networks," in Spectrum Sharing in Wireless Networks: Fairness, Efficiency, and Security, edited by John D. Matyjas, Sunil Kumar, and Fei Hu, Taylor & Francis LLC, CRC Press, May 2016. ISBN-13: 978-1498726351
  • X. Yuan, X. Qin, F. Tian, B. Jalaian, Y. Shi, Y.T. Hou, W. Lou, W. Trappe.  “An Online Admission Control Algorithm for Dynamic Traffic in Underlay Coexistence Paradigm,” IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 411–426, Dec. 2016.
  • Xu Yuan, Xiaoqi Qin, Y. Shi, Y.T. Hou, W. Lou, S.F. Midkiff, S. Kompella, "A Distributed Algorithm to Achieve Transparent Coexistence for a Secondary Multi-hop MIMO Network," IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 15, issue 9, pp. 6063–6077, September 2016.
  • C. Jiang, Y. Shi, Xiaoqi Qin, Xu Yuan, Y.T. Hou, W. Lou, S. Kompella, S.F. Midkiff, "Cross-layer Optimization for Multi-hop Wireless Networks with Successive Interference Cancellation," IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 15, issue 8, pp. 5819–5831, August 2016.
  • Yantian Hou, Ming Li, Xu Yuan, Y.T. Hou, W. Lou, "Cooperative Interference Mitigation for Heterogeneous Multi-hop Networks Coexistence," IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 15, issue 8, pp. 5328–5340, August 2016.
  • Qiben Yan, Huacheng Zeng, Tingting Jiang, Ming Li, W. Lou, and Y.T. Hou, "Jamming Resilient Communication using MIMO Interference Cancellation," IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics & Security, vol. 11, no. 7, pp. 1486–1499, July 2016.
  • Huacheng Zeng, Yi Shi, Y. Thomas Hou, Wenjing Lou, Rongbo Zhu, Scott F. Midkiff, "A Scheduling Algorithm for MIMO DoF Allocation in Multi-hop Networks," IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 264–277, February 2016.
  • H. Zeng, Y. Shi, Y.T. Hou, W. Lou, S. Kompella, and S.F. Midkiff, "An anlytical model for interference alignment in multi-hop MIMO networks," IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 17–31, January 2016.
  • Yao Zheng, Assad Moini, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou, and Y. Kawamoto, "Cognitive Security: Securing Burgeoning Landscape of Networked Mobile Devices," IEEE Network, vol. 30, issue 4, pp.64-71, July-August 2016.
  • H. Zeng, F. Tian, Y.T Hou, W. Lou, and S.F. Midkiff, "Interference alignment for multi-hop wireless networks: Challenges and research directions," IEEE Network, vol 30, issue 2, pp. 74–80, March/April 2016.
  • Brian Jalaian, V. Dasari, and Y.T. Hou, "Modeling and Optimization for Programmable Unified Control Plane in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks," in Proc. 37th IEEE Sarnoff Symposium, pp. 37–42, September 19–21, 2016, Newark, NJ, USA.
  • Ning Zhang, Kun Sun, W. Lou, and Y.T. Hou, "CaSE: Cache-Assisted Secure Execution on ARM Processors," IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P), May 23-25, 2016, San Jose, California.
  • Changlai Du, Ruide Zhang, W. Lou, and Y.T. Hou, "MobTrack: Locating Indoor Interfering Radios With A Single Device," in Proc. IEEE INFOCOM, April 10–15, 2016, San Francisco, CA, USA.
  • Ning Zhang, He Sun, Kun Sun, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou, "CacheKit: Evading Memory Introspection Using Cache Incoherence," in Proc. 1st IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P 2016), March 21–24, 2016, Saarbrcken, Germany.
  • B. Jalaeian, Yi Shi, Xu Yuan, Y. Thomas Hou, Wenjing Lou, Scott F Midkiff, "Harmonizing SIC and MIMO DoF Interference Cancellation for Efficient Network-wide Resource Allocation," in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad hoc and Sensor Systems (IEEE MASS 2015), pp. 316–323, Dallas, USA, Oct 19–22, 2015.
  • Xu Yuan, Feng Tian, Y. Thomas Hou, Wenjing Lou, Hanif D. Sherali, Sastry Kompella, Jeffrey H. Reed, "Optimal Throughput Curve for Primary and Secondary Users with Node-level Cooperation," in Proc. IEEE DySPAN 2015, pp. 363–369, Stockholm, Sweden, September 29–October 2, 2015.
  • Ethan Gaebel, Ning Zhang, W. Lou, and Y.T. Hou, "Looks Good To Me: Authentication for Augmented Reality," in Proc. Workshop on Trustworthy Embedded Devices (TrustED 2016), October 28, 2016, colocated with ACM CCS 2016, Hofburg Palace, Vienna, Austria.
  • X. Yuan, C. Jiang, Y. Shi, Y.T. Hou, W. Lou, S. Kompella, and S.F. Midkiff, (2015). Toward Transparent Coexistence for Multi-hop Secondary Cognitive Radio Networks. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications. 33 (5), 958-971.
  • Y. Zheng, M. Li, W. Lou and Y.T. Hou, "Location Based Handshake and Private Proximity Test with Location Tags," IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC), vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 406–419, Jul. 2017.
  • Y. Zheng, M. Schulz, W. Lou; Y.T. Hou, M. Hollick (2015). Highly Efficient Known-Plaintext Attacks Against Orthogonal Blinding Based Physical Layer Security. Wireless Communications Letters. 4 (1), 34-37.
  • X. Yuan, Y. Shi, Y.T. Hou, W. Lou, S.F. Midkiff, S. Kompella, (2014). Achieving Transparent Coexistence in a Multi-hop Secondary Network Through Distributed Computation. IEEE International Performance Computing and Communications Conference (IPCCC). Austin, TX, USA.
  • Q. Yan, Y. Zheng, T. Jiang, W. Lou, and Y.T. Hou (2015). PeerClean: Unveiling peer-to-peer Botnets through dynamic group behavior analysis. IEEE INFOCOM 2015. Hong Kong, China.
  • Y. Zheng, B. Wang, W. Lou, and Y.T. Hou (2015). Privacy-Preserving Link Prediction in Decentralized Online Social Networks. 20th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS 2015), Vienna, Austria.
  • H. Zeng, Y.T. Hou, Y. Shi, W. Lou, S. Kompella, S.F. Midkiff, (2014). Shark-IA: An Interference Alignment Algorithm for Multi-hop Underwater Acoustic Networks with Large Propagation Delays. ACM International Conference on Underwater Networks & Systems. Rome, Italy.

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