An Efficient and Secure Handover Protocol for IEEE 802.16m Networks
Mobile WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability Microwave Access) requires the re-authentication of mobile stations as they change from one base station to another. IEEE 802.16e uses the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) for authentication and key management. This requires about 1000 ms, therefore, it could not support mobile WiMAX applications such as video conference. In the present paper, we propose a protocol that aims to overcome the inter-domain handover problem. The proposed protocol uses the EAP protocol for authentication and key distribution. The proposed protocol is based on the use of hash functions and the Diffie-Hellman protocol to distribute the keys and to avoid the domino effect. The proposed protocol is analyzed using the BAN logic to ensure that it achieves the goals of authentication and key distribution. Furthermore, the proposed protocol is compared with other handover protocols. The comparison shows that proposed protocol outperforms the other protocols.
Keywords: Wimax Security, Authentication, Handover, 802.16m.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Heba K. Aslan
Heba Kamal Aslan is an Associate Professor at Electronics Research Institute, Cairo-Egypt. She received her B. Sc. degree, M. Sc. degree and Ph. D. degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Egypt in 1990, 1994 and 1998 respectively. Aslan has supervised several masters and Ph. D. students in the field of computer network security. Her research interests include: Key Distribution Protocols, Logical Analysis of Protocols and Wireless Security.
Heba K. Aslan
Heba Kamal Aslan is an Associate Professor at Electronics Research Institute, Cairo-Egypt. She received her B. Sc. degree, M. Sc. degree and Ph. D. degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Egypt in 1990, 1994 and 1998 respectively. Aslan has supervised several masters and Ph. D. students in the field of computer network security. Her research interests include: Key Distribution Protocols, Logical Analysis of Protocols and Wireless Security.
