Title: Security mechanisms, attacks and security enhancements for the IEEE 802.11 WLANs

Authors: Yang Xiao, Chaitanya Bandela, Xiaojiang (James) Du, Yi Pan, Edilbert Kamal Dass

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0290, USA. ' Department of Computer Science, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA. ' Department of Computer Science, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA. ' Department of Computer Science, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA. ' Department of Computer Science, The University of Memphis, Memphis, USA

Abstract: Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol was adopted to protect authorised users from unauthorised access and eavesdropping in the IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs. It has been proven that the WEP protocol fails to provide data confidentiality and authentication. This paper first introduces the WEP as well as all kinds of attacks. Then, two approaches to enhance the WEP are proposed to overcome some known vulnerabilities and thus to provide better data confidentiality and authentication. Finally, simulation methodology is presented and simulation results are provided. Our studies show that the proposed enhancements provide better data confidentiality with some degree of computing cost as the trade-off.

Keywords: IEEE 802.11; security mechanisms; attacks; security enhancements; wired equivalent privacy; WEP protocol; wireless LANs; wireless networks; local area networks; data confidentiality; authentication; vulnerability; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWMC.2006.012562

International Journal of Wireless and Mobile Computing, 2006 Vol.1 No.3/4, pp.276 - 288

Published online: 22 Feb 2007 *

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