Challenges and New Directions in Securing Spectrum Access Systems

Shanghao Shi; Yang Xiao; Wenjing Lou; Chonggang Wang; Xu Li; Y. Thomas Hou; Jeffrey H. Reed

doi:10.1109/JIOT.2021.3064583

Challenges and New Directions in Securing Spectrum Access Systems

Shanghao Shi
, Yang Xiao
, Wenjing Lou
, Chonggang Wang
, Xu Li
, Y. Thomas Hou
, Jeffrey H. Reed

Computer Science

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

The spectrum access system (SAS) is being deployed as a key component of the emerging spectrum sharing paradigm to address the spectrum crunch facing the U.S. wireless industry. Ensuring security and privacy of this system against potential attacks is a task of paramount importance. In this article, we first introduce the SAS system, describing its three-tier access model, its functional architecture, and the spectrum management protocol. We then provide a comprehensive analysis of a variety of security and privacy attacks that an SAS is vulnerable to, and discuss their countermeasures. We identify key challenges, formalize threat models, and organize the discussion of SAS security into four categories: 1) SAS server security and privacy; 2) citizens broadband radio service device security; 3) security of environment sensing capability; and 4) communication protocol security. Finally, we suggest future research directions for spectrum management security.

Original language	English
Article number	9372931
Pages (from-to)	6498-6518
Number of pages	21
Journal	IEEE Internet of Things Journal
Volume	8
Issue number	8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/JIOT.2021.3064583
State	Published - Apr 15 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 IEEE.

Funding

Manuscript received December 14, 2020; revised January 25, 2021; accepted February 19, 2021. Date of publication March 8, 2021; date of current version April 7, 2021. This work was supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant 2037777 and Grant 1916902; in part by the Army Research Office under Grant W911NF-20-1-0141; in part by the Virginia Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI); and a gift from InterDigital. (Corresponding author: Wenjing Lou.) Shanghao Shi and Wenjing Lou are with the Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24060 USA (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]).

Funders	Funder number
Virginia Commonwealth Cyber Initiative
National Science Foundation Arctic Social Science Program	2037777, 1916902
Army Research Office	W911NF-20-1-0141
Center for Cultural Innovation

Keywords

Citizens broadband radio service (CBRS)
security and privacy
spectrum access system (SAS)
spectrum management

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Signal Processing
Information Systems
Hardware and Architecture
Computer Science Applications
Computer Networks and Communications

Access to Document

10.1109/JIOT.2021.3064583

Cite this

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Challenges and New Directions in Securing Spectrum Access Systems

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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