Security threats in wireless networks: A proposed solution

Wireless networking is quickly spreading around the globe. When the wireless networks was in its infancy, most organizations and also individuals connected to it without concern for security. They concentrated on increasing the scope of wireless networks by widening the span of its use. As the Technology improves, so do the possible threats directed against this critical infrastructure. This necessitated some form of security to prevent outsiders from exploiting the resources connected via the wireless networks. The IEEE 802.11 standard for wireless networks defines a link level security protocol called the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) to protect link-layer communications from eavesdropping and other attacks. But the WEP protocol built into every 802.11 network card and access point is fundamentally insecure. Hence Wireless networking has inherent flaws from a security perspective and sensitive data sent over the wireless networks using WEP can be easily compromised.; The failure of WEP and thus insecurity in wireless networks is largely due to the fact that the stream cipher RC4, which is used for encryption and decryption is not a suitable mechanism for the 802.11 environments. This thesis exposes several security flaws in this protocol raised due to the misapplication of the cryptographic primitives. An alternate encryption/decryption mechanism is proposed and is analyzed. A simple implementation of the proposed Algorithm is discussed.