Distributed Authentication & Authorization Mechanism for Wireless Networks

A wireless network provides a significant advantage over the traditional wired network. The primary advantage is in the convenience, and in quick to deploy arrangement in at places with limited supports. This additional benefit is however not easy to realize without looking in to several points that requires more stringent analysis. One of the significant factor due to its very nature, wireless communication more prone to an unauthorized access by a user who happens to be in the vicinity, and is able to break in the security barriers. Most of the authentication mechanisms that use shared key mechanism carry the risk of loosing key during key distribution, or during authentication process. During this the highest amount of risk is present at the access points. The current wireless networks are based on 802.11b wired equivalent privacy (WEP) protocol that is based on shared key authentication. The protocol was originally designed keeping requirements of a wired network. This works fine under normal conditions, but in special circumstances it fails to provide data security. This research proposes a new approach that is based on public & private key encryptions. Once a session is established, a key is generated of that particular session. This session key shall be used through out the communications. The proposed approach is implemented on a simulator. This approach, in our finding applies more stringent requirements that are much harder to break by an intruder