TY  - EJOU
AU  - Gul, Bakhtawar 
AU  - Elahi, Atif 
AU  - Saleem, Tahir 
AU  - Gul, Noor 
AU  - Algarni, Fahad 
AU  - Ullah, Insaf 

TI  - Mitigating Sidelobe-Driven Attacks in OFDM-Based Cognitive Radio Networks
T2  - Computers, Materials \& Continua

PY  - 2026
VL  - 87
IS  - 2
SN  - 1546-2226

AB  - 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.
KW  - Cybersecurity; cognitive radios network; generalized sidelobe canceler; orthogonal frequency division multiplexing; primary user emulation attack; sidelobe suppression

DO  - 10.32604/cmc.2026.069776