Towards improving the security of wireless networks using secured session keys

Abstract

ABSTRACT Wireless Networks are mostly based on the IEEE 802.11 standards and with so many applications being wireless, without proper security, sensitive information may be at risk. Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) are two of the most commonly used mechanisms for implementing security in wireless networks. However, research has shown that both of these can be cracked quite easily within a short period as these mechanisms use a key-based security implementation for performing operations. The key can be found by capturing a few packets and hence security is compromised. In this study, the solution that is proposed by generating a secured session key using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm, which is valid only for a specific session and cannot be cracked easily by the intruder, and hence will not affect the security of the entire network. The key exchange is made by the Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol. The proposed solution was implemented over a network and found to be secure.