Title: On secure communication in integrated heterogeneous wireless networks

Authors: Bin Xie, Anup Kumar, David Zhao, Ranga Reddy, Bing He

Addresses: InfoBeyond Technology LLC, Louisville, KY, 40207, USA. ' Mobile Information Network and Distributed Systems (MINDS) Lab University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA. ' US Army – CERDEC, Ft. Monmouth, NJ, USA. ' US Army – CERDEC, Ft. Monmouth, NJ, USA. ' Department of Computer Science, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA

Abstract: The next generation of mobile wireless systems targets to obtain ubiquitous connectivity services for mobile users through heterogeneous wireless networks (HWNs), which integrate cellular network, WLAN, WiMAX, and MANET. It is essential to consider the security issue as one of the main objectives in developing HWNs. In this article, we discuss the security characteristics unique to HWNs and show how attacks against single or multi-hop wireless networks can be translated into powerful attacks against HWNs. We investigate various types of attacks against HWNs and provide an overview of existing solutions for security protection. We also identify underlying challenges in securing HWNs infrastructure and protecting the transmitted information.

Keywords: multi-hop cellular networks; multi-hop WLAN; MANET; wireless attacks; DDoS; heterogeneous wireless networks; wireless LANs; local area networks; mobile ad hoc networks; mobile networks; WiMAX; network security.

DOI: 10.1504/IJITCC.2010.035224

International Journal of Information Technology, Communications and Convergence, 2010 Vol.1 No.1, pp.4 - 23

Published online: 16 Sep 2010 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article