Secure Dynamic Spectrum Access: Challenges and Solutions

When: Friday, February 12, 2016
Where: PGH 563
Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Speaker: Dr. Rui Zhang, University of Hawaii

Host: Prof. Stephen Huang

Rui Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Hawaii. He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University in 2013, the M.E. degree in Communication and Information Systems from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2005, and the B.E. degree in Communication Engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2001. His research interests are the security and privacy issues in wireless networks, mobile systems, cloud computing, wireless/mobile health, social networks, and smart grids. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Internet of Things Journal. He was a local-arrangement co-chair for MobiCom 2014,  is a general co-chair for ISC 2016, and has been a TPC member for various conferences such as IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE SECON, IEEE CNS, ICCCN, and ACM ASIACCS.

Bio:

The explosive growth of wireless traffic along with limited radio spectrum resources is making Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) a key enabler for implementing the FCC National Broadband Plan. By definition, DSA allows unlicensed wireless devices (secondary users) with cognitive radio capabilities to have more flexible and efficient access to the radio spectrum without causing interference to licensed wireless devices (primary users). In current DSA proposals, a spectrum service provider (SSP) maintains a geo-location database for real-time radio spectrum availability, in which the spectrum data can be obtained from radio propagation and terrain models, dedicated spectrum sensors at selected locations, and pervasive mobile users conducting crowdsourced spectrum sensing tasks. Secondary users are required to check with and obtain permissions from the SSP before accessing a licensed channel in the desired time and location. The full realization of DSA faces many security challenges, which have been highlighted in recent NSF and DoD solicitations. In this talk, I will present two case studies about the security challenges and countermeasures for DSA. Specifically, I will first introduce an efficient and effective scheme to authenticate secondary users by embedding spectrum-authorization information into and detecting it from physical-layer signals. Then I will present a novel scheme for the SSP to make correct decisions about spectrum availability even when most crowdsourced spectrum-sensing reports are forged.