Secure WLAN Handoff Scheme with Continuous Authentication

Abstract

Handoffs are essential for providing continuous mobility to a wireless Station (STA) in an Enterprise LAN. An important requirement of the handoff is to establish connection of the roaming STA with a new Access Point (AP) securely and quickly such that the undergoing communication remains unaffected. We propose a novel handoff scheme for enhancing the handoff performance and security. The scheme is a lightweight and reactive method for transferring the keying material i.e., STA context to new AP. Scheme utilizes Key Hiding Communication (KHC) scheme for ongoing data communication between STA and AP. It provides continuous authentication between STA and APs. Computation and communication cost for the handoff process are calculated and security analysis is done. A comparison with other handoff schemes is also provided.