Secure roaming and infrastructure sharing for multi-operator WMNs

Abstract

Wireless mesh networks consist of a wireless infrastructure of mesh routers which are connected to the Internet via mesh gateways. While previous security research in the area mainly focused single-operator networks, this paper proposes a comprehensive security architecture for multi-operator wireless mesh networks. Our proposal allows for a secure deployment of infrastructure components (routers and gateways) as well as mesh client. The multi-operator support of our architecture does not only cover mesh client roaming, but also the deployment of infrastructure components of one operator in the administrative domain of the other operator. Our architecture is thus - to the best of our knowledge - the first to support secure infrastructure sharing between operators. Note that our solution is based on open standards and protects traffic generated by mesh clients from insider attackers such as compromised mesh routers, mesh routers operated by malicious operators, and curious or malicious routing mesh clients.