Computational Complexities and Breaches in Authentication Frameworks of Broadband Wireless Access

International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security, IJCSIS, Vol. 4, No. 1 & 2, August 2009, USA Secure access of communication networks has become an increasingly important area of consideration for the communication service providers of present day. Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) networks are proving to be an efficient and cost effective solution for the provisioning of high rate wireless traffic links in static and mobile domains. The secure access of these networks is necessary to ensure their superior operation and revenue efficacy. Although authentication process is a key to secure access in BWA networks, the breaches present in them limit the networks performance. In this paper, the vulnerabilities in the authentication frameworks of BWA networks have been unveiled. Moreover, this paper also describes the limitations of these protocols and of the solutions proposed to them due to the involved computational complexities and overheads. The possible attacks on privacy and performance of BWA networks have been discussed and explained in detail.