A KRC encryption solution protecting IEEE 802.11I 4-way handshake from DoS attacks

IEEE Std 802.11i [1] has specified the security functionality of wireless local area networks (WLANs). However, two types of DoS attacks have been disclosed which could block the 4-way handshake procedure [2]. Some improvements over them have been investigated. But all of them have obvious drawbacks. In this paper, we address the security issue in WLANs and analyze the operations of the 4-way handshake protocol. Based on the insight of the protocol and the existing potential vulnerabilities under the DoS attacks, we propose an enhancement solution to protect the protocol from DoS attacks. Compared with other existing works, our solution is more effective and efficient. Colored Petri Nets (CPN) has been employed to formally verify our solution.