Blind key distribution mechanism to secure wireless metropolitan area network

Abstract

IEEE 802.16, also known as WMAN is a promising broadband wireless technology that provides a great support for Next Generation Networks (NGN). Due to the continuous evolution of new technologies and increasing diverse set of mobile users, WMAN has huge security vulnerabilities. So, there is an intrinsic need to address WMAN security and reliability pitfalls. Therefore, we propose an enhanced version of Privacy Key Management Protocol Version 2 (e-PKMv2) based security scheme for secured data transmission between the Base Station (BS) and the Subscriber Station (SS) in WMAN. For this, we introduce a new technique called Blind Key Distribution (BKD) which increases the security of Authorization Key (AK) significantly in the key management protocol. We show how the proposed e-PKMv2 ensures secure key exchange in WMAN. Finally, the performance analysis of both the existing and proposed cryptosystem is provided.