Secure wireless LANs

Abstract

Mobile computing is a major area of current research. A variety of wirelessly networked mobile devices now make it possible for a physically unteihered computer to function in a fully networked manner. Recent research has focussed on providing the mobile user a seamless environment of wired and wireless networks. One of the major hurdles in providing such a seamless environment is that wireless media are inherently less secure. In this paper, we propose a security scheme for wireless media which permits secure communication over a single wireless channel. Our scheme allows both communicating parties to authenticate each other and establish a shared key for secure communication. An unauthorized snooper cannot even discover the identity of the communicating parlies. Mobile computers are thus provided a highly secure wireless environment. We describe an efficient practical implementation of the scheme and prove its correctness.