Title: Towards formal analysis of wireless LAN security with MIS protocol

Authors: Ilsun You, Yoshiaki Hori, Kouichi Sakurai

Addresses: School of Information Science, Korean Bible University, 16 Danghyun 2-gil, Nowon-gu, Seoul 139-791, South Korea. ' Department of Informatics, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan. ' Department of Informatics, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan

Abstract: In 2004, the MIS and MISAUTH protocols (shortly MISP) were proposed for secure and fast connection in Wireless LAN (WLAN). Since then, several studies were conducted to evaluate MISP. However, because of the lack of formal security analysis, the security measures provided by them cannot be trusted to be precise and reasonable. Motivated by this, we formally analyse MISP based on both BAN-logic and the Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPAS) tool. This analysis clearly shows that MISP suffers from weak Session Key (SK) while being vulnerable to Denial of Service (DoS) attack. We discuss these weaknesses and related attacks in detail, and also provide considerable comments for implementation of MISP.

Keywords: wireless LANs; WLANs; network security; local area networks; MIS protocol; MISP; IEEE802.1X; IEEE802.11i; weak session keys; denial of service; DoS attacks.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAHUC.2011.038997

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, 2011 Vol.7 No.2, pp.112 - 120

Published online: 11 Mar 2011 *

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