Two-way Handshake protocol for improved security in IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs

Based on a fact that the 4-way Handshake protocol in IEEE 802.11 is not robust against a DoS (Denial of Service) attack, a new 2-way Handshake protocol is proposed, which is more secure and efficient than the 4-way Handshake protocol. Both protocols are used to derive a session key to protect the data frames, as well as providing mutual authentication between a mobile station and an access point, and key confirmation. In contrast to using random numbers to derive the session key in the 4-way Handshake protocol, a loosely synchronized sequence number is used in the proposed 2-way Handshake protocol. The two protocols are also compared in terms of the security and performance. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.