Efficient Security Protocols for Fast Handovers in Wireless Mesh Networks
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EFFICIENT SECURITY PROTOCOLS FOR FAST HANDOVERS IN WIRELESS MESH NETWORKS CELIA LI A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO JULY 2015 °c Celia Li, 2015 Abstract Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are gaining popularity as a flexible and inexpensive replacement for Ethernet-based infrastructures. As the use of mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets is becoming ubiquitous, mobile clients should be guaranteed uninterrupted connectivity and services as they move from one access point to another within a WMN or between networks. To that end, we propose a novel security framework that consists of a new architecture, trust models, and protocols to o®er mobile clients seamless and fast handovers in WMNs. The framework provides a dynamic, flexible, resource-e±cient, and secure platform for intra-network and inter-network handovers in order to support real-time mobile applications in WMNs. In particular, we propose solutions to the following problems: authentication, key management, and group key management. We propose (1) a suite of certi¯cate-based authentication protocols that minimize the authentication delay during handovers from one access point to another within a network (intra- network authentication). ii (2) a suite of key distribution and authentication protocols that minimize the authenti- cation delay during handovers from one network to another (inter-network authenti- cation). (3) a new implementation of group key management at the data link layer in order to reduce the group key update latency from linear time (as currently done in IEEE 802.11 standards) to logarithmic time. This contributes towards minimizing the latency of the handover process for mobile members in a multicast or broadcast group. iv Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Professor Uyen Trang Nguyen for her expert supervision. I highly appreciate the valuable advice, professional guidance, and consistent encouragement from Professor Nguyen through all stages of my study and research. I am grateful to my thesis committee members, Professors Zhen Ming Jiang, Bobby Ma, Hongmei Zhu, Suprakash Datta, and Aijun An, for reviewing my thesis and providing their valuable insights. I would like to thank my postgraduate fellow and friend, Farzana Yasmeen, for re- viewing my thesis and providing useful and detailed comments. I would like to dedicate this thesis to my family for their deepest love, continuous encouragement, and unconditional support. v Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements v Table of Contents vi List of Tables vii List of Figures viii Publications from the Thesis ix Abbreviations xi 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Motivations and Contributions of the Thesis . 4 1.1.1 E±cient Authentication for Fast Intra-network Handovers in a Wire- less Mesh Network . 5 vi 1.1.2 E±cient Authentication and Key Distribution for Fast Inter-Network Handovers among Multiple Wireless Mesh Networks . 7 1.1.3 E±cient Group Key Management for Wireless Mesh Access Points 9 1.2 Thesis Organization . 11 2 Literature Review 12 2.1 Overview of Wireless Communications . 12 2.1.1 Transmission Range and Interference Range . 13 2.1.2 Hidden Terminal and Exposed Terminal Problems . 14 2.1.3 Medium Access Mechanisms . 15 2.1.4 Overview of DSSS and OFDM . 21 2.2 Overview of Cryptography . 26 2.2.1 Encryption Schemes . 27 2.2.2 Public Key Cryptography . 32 2.2.3 Digital Signatures . 36 2.2.4 Message Authentication Code . 39 2.3 Security Threats . 41 2.4 Security Models and Trust Management in Wireless Networks . 46 2.4.1 Security Models for Handovers in Wireless Networks . 46 2.4.2 Trust Management . 50 2.5 Overview of IEEE 802.11i Security Standard . 52 2.5.1 Authentication in IEEE 802.11i . 55 vii 2.5.2 Key Management and Group Key Management in IEEE 802.11i . 57 2.6 Security Protocols for Intra-network and Inter-network Handovers . 61 2.6.1 Handover Operations in Wireless Networks . 61 2.6.2 Authentication and Key Distribution Schemes for Intra-network Handovers . 63 2.6.3 Authentication and Key Distribution Schemes for Inter-network Handovers . 72 2.7 Group Key Management . 91 2.7.1 Centralized GKM . 91 2.7.2 Contributory GKM . 93 2.7.3 Decentralized GKM . 95 2.7.4 Applicability to GKM at the Data Link Layer . 99 2.8 Chapter Summary . 99 3 E±cient Authentication for Fast Intra-Network Handovers in a Wireless Mesh Network 101 3.1 The Proposed Trust Model and Certi¯cates for Intra-network Handovers . 103 3.1.1 The Proposed Trust Model . 103 3.1.2 Certi¯cates Used in the Proposed Authentication Protocols . 105 3.2 The Proposed Authentication Protocols . 112 3.2.1 The Login Authentication Protocol (LAP) . 113 3.2.2 The Handover Authentication Protocol (HAP) . 117 viii 3.2.3 Key Generation . 124 3.3 Security Analysis of the Proposed Authentication Protocols . 126 3.3.1 Overview . 126 3.3.2 Identity Privacy Attack . 128 3.3.3 Forgery Attack . 128 3.3.4 Time-memory Trade-o® Attack . 129 3.3.5 Replay Attack . 129 3.3.6 Denial-of-Service (DoS) Attack . 135 3.3.7 Compromised MAPs . 137 3.4 Performance Evaluation . 138 3.4.1 Numerical Analysis . 139 3.4.2 Simulation Results . 145 3.5 Chapter Summary . 159 4 Security Protocols for Fast Inter-Network Handovers among Multiple Wireless Mesh Networks 160 4.1 The Proposed Architecture, Trust Model, and Certi¯cates for Inter-Network Handovers . 162 4.1.1 The Proposed Inter-network Architecture . 162 4.1.2 The Proposed Inter-network Trust Model . 167 4.1.3 Certi¯cates for Inter-Network Handovers . 171 4.2 The Proposed Security Protocols for Fast Inter-Network Handovers . 177 ix 4.2.1 Phase 1: Network Initialization . 178 4.2.2 Phase 2: Inter-network Handover . 182 4.3 Security Analysis . 201 4.3.1 Overview . 201 4.3.2 Security Analysis of the Proposed Security Protocols . 203 4.4 Performance Evaluation . 215 4.4.1 Numerical Analysis . 216 4.4.2 Simulation Results . 223 4.5 Chapter Summary . 244 5 E±cient Group Key Management for Wireless Mesh Access Points 246 5.1 Overview of LKH and OFT Algorithms . 247 5.1.1 Logical Key Tree . 247 5.1.2 LKH Operations . 253 5.1.3 OFT Operations . 259 5.2 Implementing LKH and OFT in Mesh Access Points . 270 5.2.1 LKH Implementation . 270 5.2.2 OFT Implementation . 276 5.3 Performance Evaluation . 283 5.3.1 Computational Complexity . 283 5.3.2 Communication Complexity . 287 5.3.3 Numerical Analysis . 289 x 5.4 Simulation Results . 304 5.4.1 Performance Metric . 304 5.4.2 Simulation Parameters . 304 5.4.3 Simulation Results of DSSS . 308 5.4.4 Simulation Results of OFDM . 317 5.5 Chapter Summary . 328 6 Conclusion and Future Research Directions 331 6.1 Summary . 331 6.2 Future Research Directions . 333 A The Handover Authentication Protocol by Kassab et al. 335 B Adaptive Protocol - Authentication and Key Agreement (AP-AKA) 338 Bibliography 342 xi List of Tables 2.1 Comparison of authentication approaches in wireless networks . 73 3.1 Notations . 107 3.2 Standards for one-way delay limits . 122 3.3 Computation and communication costs of authentication protocols . 142 3.4 Common simulation parameters . 143 3.5 Simulation parameters for di®erent experiments . 144 4.1 Notations . 172 4.2 Computation and communication costs of the ABD protocol . 218 4.3 Computation and communication costs of key distribution . 221 4.4 Computation and communication costs of authentication . 222 4.5 Common simulation parameters . 226 4.6 Simulation parameters for di®erent experiments . 231 5.1 Each member's key structure for LKH . 272 xii 5.2 Each member's key structure for OFT . 279 5.3 Computational complexity . 284 5.4 Number of hash operations in OFT . 287 5.5 Communication complexity . 288 5.6 Latency Components . 294 5.7 Rekeying Latency . 295 5.8 Timing Related Parameters . 298 5.9 Simulation parameters . 305 5.10 IEEE 802.11 standards used in the experiments . 306 5.11 Simulation Results . 308 xiii List of Figures 1.1 An example of a WMN . 2 2.1 Transmission range and interference range . 13 2.2 An example of hidden terminal problem . 14 2.3 IEEE 802.11 protocol architecture . 16 2.4 CSMA/CA . ..