Using Stackelberg game to enhance cognitive radio sensor networks security

The authors propose a game-theoretic approach using the Stackelberg game for securing cognitive radio sensor network (CRSN) against the spectrum sensing data falsification attack; this attack aims at corrupting the spectrum decisions communicated from the ambient sensor nodes (ASNs) to the fusion centre by imposing interference power. The proposed game approach is developed for two different attack-defence scenarios. In the first scenario, the attacker selects to attack a group of delivered reports of the ASNs that have a protection degree below a specific threshold. In the second scenario, the attacker applies its maximum attack interference power to the delivered reports of the ASNs that have been reported to be least protected in the previous round. Simulation results indicate the improved performance of the proposed protection model as compared with two baseline defence mechanisms, namely, the random and equal-protection defence mechanisms with static signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and variable SNRs. Consequently, Stackelberg game features prove to be beneficial for securing communication over CRSN.