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As network services progress and mobile and IoT environments expand, numerous security concerns have surfaced for spectrum access systems (SASs). The omnipresent risk of Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks and raising concerns about user privacy (e.g., location privacy, anonymity) are among such cyber threats. These security and privacy risks increase due to the threat of quantum computers that can compromise longterm security by circumventing conventional cryptosystems and increasing the cost of countermeasures. While some defense mechanisms exist against these threats in isolation, there is a significant gap in the state of the art on a holistic solution against DoS attacks with privacy and anonymity for spectrum management systems, especially when post-quantum (PQ) security is in mind. In this paper, we propose a new cybersecurity framework, PACDoSQ, which is the first to offer location privacy and anonymity for spectrum management with counter DoS and PQ security simultaneously. Our solution introduces the private spectrum bastion concept to exploit existing architectural features of SASs and then synergizes them with multi-server private information retrieval and PQ-secure Tor to guarantee a location-private and anonymous acquisition of spectrum information, together with hash-based client-server puzzles for counter DoS. We prove that PACDoSQ achieves its security objectives and show its feasibility via a comprehensive performance evaluation.
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This content will become publicly available on June 23, 2026
SLAP: Secure Location-proof and Anonymous Privacy-preserving Spectrum Access
The rapid advancements in wireless technology have significantly increased the demand for communication resources, leading to the development of Spectrum Access Systems (SAS). However, network regulations require disclosing sensitive user information, such as location coordinates and transmission details, raising critical privacy concerns. Moreover, as a database-driven architecture reliant on user-provided data, SAS necessitates robust location verification to counter identity and location spoofing attacks and remains a primary target for denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. Addressing these security challenges while adhering to regulatory requirements is essential.In this paper, we propose SLAP, a novel framework that ensures location privacy and anonymity during spectrum queries, usage notifications, and location-proof acquisition. Our solution includes an adaptive dual-scenario location verification mechanism with architectural flexibility and a fallback option, along with a counter-DoS approach using time-lock puzzles. We prove the security of SLAP and demonstrate its advantages over existing solutions through comprehensive performance evaluations.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2444615
- PAR ID:
- 10653278
- Publisher / Repository:
- IEEE
- Date Published:
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 8
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Spectrum Access Systems Location Privacy Anonymous Credentials' Location Proof Counter-DoS
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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