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SERAX: SECURE RANGE EXTENSIONS IN IEEE 802.11i

Wireless LAN is rapidly growing as a popular technology for network communications. Due to its broadcast nature, the security of these systems is still far from satisfactory and continues to be a major concern for its usage. In the IEEE 802.11b standard, the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is used as the only measure to enhance data confidentiality against eavesdroppers, and it proved to have several weaknesses. Several measures have been taken to solve the problem of WEP vulnerability, from introducing schemes as add-on (Wi-Fi Alliance) to developing new standards (IEEE 802.1x) leading to the newly developed IEEE 802.11i standard. IEEE 802.11i may have extended the security margins in WLANs, but it is still lacking certain considerable secure features to conceive wide embracing. A significant feature any WLAN standard should have is a secure handoff. Handoff is the process by which we keep the mobile node in contact with the system in case of roaming (moving between access points) or access point breakage. The handoff process reduces service failure rate and improves system utilization. The difficulty could be addressed either by integrating the infrastructure mode and ad-hoc mode of wireless networks in a secure manner (AAHO), or by employing secure relay with access point emulation. This paper adopts the later approach by implementing a framework that integrates secure node relays with access point emulation to extend the operational range of access points (called SERAX). The significance of SERAX stems from the fact that it provides dynamicity without compromising the secure features of IEEE 802.11i.