Security mechanisms, attacks and security enhancements for the IEEE 802.11 WLANs

: Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol was adopted to protect authorised users from unauthorised access and eavesdropping in the IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs. It has been proven that the WEP protocol fails to provide data confidentiality and authentication. This paper first introduces the WEP as well as all kinds of attacks. Then, two approaches to enhance the WEP are proposed to overcome some known vulnerabilities and thus to provide better data confidentiality and authentication. Finally, simulation methodology is presented and simulation results are provided. Our studies show that the proposed enhancements provide better data confidentiality with some degree of computing cost as the trade-off.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: IJWMC
• Authors: Yang Xiao, Chaitanya Bandela, Xiaojiang Du, Yi Pan, Edilbert Kamal Dass
• Keywords: Data Confidentiality, Equivalent Privacy, IJWMC 2006, WEP Protocol