Enhancing the Security of IEEE 802.11i Standard by Integrating a Quantum Scheme for Authentication and Encryption Key Distribution

Abstract

According to the principles of quantum mechanics, quantum cryptography provides the necessary means to establish a secret and perfectly random key material between two parties. However, classical cryptography suffers from several vulnerabilities that make it unsecure against impersonation attacks or enemy with an unbounded computing power. Improving the contemporary cryptographic methods, based only on computational security, by integrating a quantum cryptographic solution becomes an interesting prospect worth exploring. In this paper, we introduce a quantum scheme, for mutual authentication and key establishment, which will be integrated within IEEE 802.11 networks to reach absolute security. The key issued from the quantum algorithm is a fundamental parameter for authenticating the participating parties and for building the Pairwise key and the Group key hierarchies. To inspect the security of our approach, a formal verification of some security properties is performed using the Model Checking technique.