Packet Based Authentication Mechanism in Wimax

Abstract

WiMAX (World wide interoperability for Microwave Access) is a step towards 4th generation communication. Wireless communication is more vulnerable to attacks such as man in the middle attack, jamming, replay and DoS etc. The strength of CCMP algorithm used in WiMAX is prone to precomputation attack as the initial counter is predictable. Packet based challenge response mechanism uses separate encryption key for each packet thus strengthening the security of the connection against unauthorized access by immediately discarding the packet if packet authentication fails. Further, the Nonce and initial counter are not predictable anymore.