Analysing the EAP-TLS handshake and the 4-way handshake of the 802.11i standard

The IEEE 802.11i standard has been designed to enhance security in wireless networks. The EAP-TLS handshake aims to provide mutual authentication between supplicant and authentication server, and then derive the Pairwise Master Key (PMK). In the 4 -way handshake the supplicant and the authenticator use PMK to derive a fresh pairwise transient key (PTK). The PMK is not used directly for security while assuming the supplicant and authenticator have the same PMK before running 4- way handshake. In this paper, the EAP-TLS handshake and the 4-way handshake phases have been analysed with a proposed framework using Isabelle tool. In the analysis, we have found a new Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack in the 4-way handshake. The attack prevents the authenticator from receiving message 4 after the supplicant sends it out. This attack forces the authenticator to re-send the message 3 until time out and subsequently to de-authenticate supplicant. This paper has proposed improvements to the 4-way handshake to avoid the Denial-of-Service attack

IEEE 802.11 i Security and Vulnerabilities

Despite using a variety of comprehensive preventive security measures, the Robust Secure Networks (RSNs) remain vulnerable to a number of attacks. Failure of preventive measures to address all RSN vulnerabilities dictates the need for enhancing the performance of Wireless Intrusion Detection Systems (WIDSs) to detect all attacks on RSNs with less false positive and false negative rates

Secure and Privacy-Preserving Authentication Protocols for Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have emerged as a promising concept to meet the challenges in next-generation wireless networks such as providing flexible, adaptive, and reconfigurable architecture while offering cost-effective solutions to service providers. As WMNs become an increasingly popular replacement technology for last-mile connectivity to the home networking, community and neighborhood networking, it is imperative to design efficient and secure communication protocols for these networks. However, several vulnerabilities exist in currently existing protocols for WMNs. These security loopholes can be exploited by potential attackers to launch attack on WMNs. The absence of a central point of administration makes securing WMNs even more challenging. The broadcast nature of transmission and the dependency on the intermediate nodes for multi-hop communications lead to several security vulnerabilities in WMNs. The attacks can be external as well as internal in nature. External attacks are launched by intruders who are not authorized users of the network. For example, an intruding node may eavesdrop on the packets and replay those packets at a later point of time to gain access to the network resources. On the other hand, the internal attacks are launched by the nodes that are part of the WMN. On example of such attack is an intermediate node dropping packets which it was supposed to forward. This chapter presents a comprehensive discussion on the current authentication and privacy protection schemes for WMN. In addition, it proposes a novel security protocol for node authentication and message confidentiality and an anonymization scheme for privacy protection of users in WMNs.Comment: 32 pages, 10 figures. The work is an extended version of the author's previous works submitted in CoRR: arXiv:1107.5538v1 and arXiv:1102.1226v

Static and Dynamic 4-Way Handshake Solutions to Avoid Denial of Service Attack in Wi-Fi Protected Access and IEEE 802.11i

This paper focuses on WPA and IEEE 802.11i protocols that represent two important solutions in the wireless environment. Scenarios where it is possible to produce a DoS attack and DoS flooding attacks are outlined. The last phase of the authentication process, represented by the 4-way handshake procedure, is shown to be unsafe from DoS attack. This can produce the undesired effect of memory exhaustion if a flooding DoS attack is conducted. In order to avoid DoS attack without increasing the complexity of wireless mobile devices too much and without changing through some further control fields of the frame structure of wireless security protocols, a solution is found and an extension of WPA and IEEE 802.11 is proposed. A protocol extension with three "static" variants and with a resource-aware dynamic approach is considered. The three enhancements to the standard protocols are achieved through some simple changes on the client side and they are robust against DoS and DoS flooding attack. Advantages introduced by the proposal are validated by simulation campaigns and simulation parameters such as attempted attacks, successful attacks, and CPU load, while the algorithm execution time is evaluated. Simulation results show how the three static solutions avoid memory exhaustion and present a good performance in terms of CPU load and execution time in comparison with the standard WPA and IEEE 802.11i protocols. However, if the mobile device presents different resource availability in terms of CPU and memory or if resource availability significantly changes in time, a dynamic approach that is able to switch among three different modalities could be more suitable

Security and Privacy Issues in Wireless Mesh Networks: A Survey

This book chapter identifies various security threats in wireless mesh network (WMN). Keeping in mind the critical requirement of security and user privacy in WMNs, this chapter provides a comprehensive overview of various possible attacks on different layers of the communication protocol stack for WMNs and their corresponding defense mechanisms. First, it identifies the security vulnerabilities in the physical, link, network, transport, application layers. Furthermore, various possible attacks on the key management protocols, user authentication and access control protocols, and user privacy preservation protocols are presented. After enumerating various possible attacks, the chapter provides a detailed discussion on various existing security mechanisms and protocols to defend against and wherever possible prevent the possible attacks. Comparative analyses are also presented on the security schemes with regards to the cryptographic schemes used, key management strategies deployed, use of any trusted third party, computation and communication overhead involved etc. The chapter then presents a brief discussion on various trust management approaches for WMNs since trust and reputation-based schemes are increasingly becoming popular for enforcing security in wireless networks. A number of open problems in security and privacy issues for WMNs are subsequently discussed before the chapter is finally concluded.Comment: 62 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables. This chapter is an extension of the author's previous submission in arXiv submission: arXiv:1102.1226. There are some text overlaps with the previous submissio

Security and Authentication for 802.11 Wireless Networks

Wireless Networks is a very growing market. However, the security measures are not strong enough; the WEP security protocol is flawed. The 802.11 Task Group I is working on new security measures in order to strengthen the access control of users, the privacy and the integrity of data. We will describe the WEP flaws and the new security measures of 802.11 Task Group I. Finally, we will propose a new architecture to improve user identification for the wireless network of our department

EAP-CRA for WiMAX, WLAN and 4G LTE Interoperability

Today we are moving into a “post-PC” world! Not many people sit in front of custom built PCs to do their businesses any more. Hand held devices such as iPod Touch, iPhone, Galaxy S3, iPad, Galaxy Tab, Airbook, Notepad etc. are bringing in a new paradigm as to how people use and communicate information. These devices can be thought as a theoretical “black-box”. They are for people who want to use it without wanting to know how they work. Such devices have third generation user interfaces – multi touch, physics and gestures (MPG). They need updates, but the user is not worried of how and where the files are stored. When a new application is installed, the user sees the icon and starts using it. The user is not interested in, what files were installed or where it was installed – there is no file management. The post-PC approach to dealing with software is that it’s discovered on an app store, downloaded with a single touch and deleted with another touch. Updates all come at once from the app store and it all happens behind the scene with minimal user involvement. All this is happening and adopted rapidly because people are able to do a number of things without being restricted to one place. They can download apps, watch movies, listen to news, browse the web etc. while on the move.Griffith Sciences, School of Information and Communication TechnologyFull Tex

ANALYZING AND EVALUATING THE SECURITY STANDARDS IN WIRELESS NETWORK: A REVIEW STUDY

Wireless networks used widely in office, home, and public places so security is one of the significant issues to keep the transmitted information safe. The applied security standards have been developed in response to the demand of high security and the developed hardware with software. Currently, the available security standards are (WEP, WPA, WPA2 and under development WPA3). These security standards are different in the offered security level base on the employed authentication method and encryption algorithms. The major objective of this paper is studying security standards and analyzing them based on their features. In addition to presenting a detailed review about WPA3 and its improvements over the older security standards. The conducted evaluations explained the differences among the Wi-Fi security standards in term of the offered security level, software and hardware requirements