Fast and Secure Handover Authentication Scheme Based on Ticket for WiMAX and WiFi Heterogeneous Networks

Integrated WiMAX and WiFi networks is of great potential for the future due to the wider coverage of WiMAX and the high data transport capacity of WiFi. However, seamless and secure handover (HO) is one of the most challenging issues in the WiMAX and WiFi heterogeneous networks. In this paper, we present a fast and secure HO authentication scheme based on credential ticket for WiMAX and WiFi heterogeneous networks. In the proposed scheme, Mobile Station (MS) shows its corresponding credential ticket generated by the previously visited Base Station (BS)/Access Point (AP) to the target BS/AP whenever an HO occurs, and then the MS and target BS/AP can complete the mutual authentication and derive their shared session key without interacting with the Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting server, which significantly reduces the HO authentication delay. Moreover, our scheme fulfills the essential security requirements in HO authentication semantics and the formal verification by the AVISPA tool shows that the proposed scheme is secure against various malicious attacks. In addition, the theoretical analysis and simulation indicate that our scheme outperforms the existing HO authentication schemes in terms of communication and computation cost.