Open Access

ARTICLE

Mitigating Sidelobe-Driven Attacks in OFDM-Based Cognitive Radio Networks

Bakhtawar Gul¹, Atif Elahi^1,2, Tahir Saleem³, Noor Gul¹, Fahad Algarni⁴, Insaf Ullah^5,*

1 Department of Electronics, University of Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan
2 Govt. College Mathra, Higher Education Archives & Libraries Department, Peshawar, Pakistan
3 Department of Computing, Hamdard University Islamabad Campus, Islamabad, Pakistan
4 College of Computing and Information Technology, University of Bisha, Bisha, Saudi Arabia
5 Institute for Analytics and Data Science, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

* Corresponding Author: Insaf Ullah. Email:

Computers, Materials & Continua 2026, 87(2), 86 https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2026.069776

Received 30 June 2025; Accepted 07 November 2025; Issue published 12 March 2026

Abstract

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) enables efficient Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) but suffers from high sidelobe that causes excessive out-of-band (OOB) emissions and expose the system to spectrum-layer cyberattacks such as man-in-the-middle (MITM), eavesdropping, and primary user emulation (PUE) attacks. To address both spectral leakage and its security implications, this paper introduces a secure and intelligent hybrid optimization strategy that combinesan Eigenspace-based Generalized Sidelobe Canceller (ES-GSC) with a Genetic Algorithm (GA), to derive optimally weighted cancellation carriers. The proposed method jointly suppresses sidelobes and reinforces resistance to leakage-based attacks. MATLAB Simulation demonstrate considerable reductions in OOB emissions and higher resilience against spectrum-layer threats compared with existing techniques.

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Keywords

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