Identity-Based Encryption Protocol for Privacy and Authentication in Wireless Networks

Abstract

Wireless networks are inherently insecure due to the fact that information on the network can be passively retrieved by an eavesdropper using off-the-shelf network hardware and free software applications. The most common solution for this vulnerability is the Wireless Protected Access (WPA) protocol. This protocol provides data encryption and access control for wireless networks. However, the WPA protocol contains drawbacks in its authentication mechanisms that can cause inconveniences for end users and performance degradation for the network. Furthermore, many of the authentication methods used with WPA are not friendly to small and resource-constrained wireless devices. This chapter presents the design of a new wireless security protocol for privacy and authentication using efficient Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) techniques. This protocol can be used to eliminate the need for a central authentication server for enterprise networks, as well as to provide the new feature of privacy without authentication for public wireless networks. This work also puts forth an analysis and validation of the new protocol, including security strength, storage overhead, communication overhead, and computational efficiency.