Improving the security of wireless LANs by managing 802.1x disassociation

802.1x is a security protocol based on the frame structure of 802.11. It attempts to provide strong authentication, access control, and WEP (wired equivalent privacy) key management for wireless LANs. Unfortunately, 802.1x misses its goals in access control denial-of-service attacks. Currently, there are no IEEE approved ways to solve this security hole. We propose a central manager, not only to take the responsibility of an authentication server, but also to add functionality to prevent denial of service attacks. We also analyze how the 802.11 MAC layer protocol works with our solution.