Security Enhancement Schemes for Wireless Networks

The IEEE 802.11 standard is becoming the most popular§and efficient network topology deployed today.§Providing and ensuring the security of wireless§network is essential part to its continuous growth.§Goals such as confidentiality and trust imply that§every data transmitted by each user stays known only§to the communicating parties. Authorization of users§is also a very important aspect of network integrity.§There exist mechanisms defined by the Wi-Fi Protected§Access (WPA) protocol that enable such functionality;§however, recent attacks on such system showed that§these mechanisms can be defied. In this Book, we§propose two new security schemes. The first employs a§neural network decision engine that restricts network§access to mobile nodes whose physical location is§within a threshold distance from the wireless access§point or the controller of the network. The second§tackles the disassociation packet security flaw by§which a malicious attacker can disconnect all network§users by injecting two or more false management§frames into the network. Our scheme proposes the use§of digital signatures as a mean to ensure the§authenticity, integrity and validity of these frames.