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Ticket-Based Authentication for Fast Handover in Wireless Mesh Networks

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Abstract

Wireless mesh networks have grown very rapidly in recent years, owing to the features of self-organization, low installation costs, large-scale deployment, and fault-tolerance. Fast and efficient authentication schemes are especially important in multi-hop WMNs. We propose two novel ticket-based mutual authentication protocols in order to minimize the latency, one for initial authentication and the other for fast handover. The 4-way handshake in the phase of login authentication is cut down to 2-way using the Login-Ticket. The authentication server does not need to be involved in the handover authentication process. Instead, the target mesh access points authenticate mobile clients using the tickets pre-distributed by the current access points, avoiding multi-hop wireless communications between the authentication server and the mesh clients/points. Furthermore, even if the client has to handover several times, the AS is still not required to be involved in the process. Security analysis shows that our proposed protocols are secure and resilient to various kinds of attacks. Performance analysis demonstrates that the protocols are efficient in terms of authentication delay and communications costs, thus they are very suitable for circumstance of WMNs.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their comments that will help them to improve this paper. This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61201220).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Mathematical Engineering and Advanced Computing, Zhengzhou, 450002, People’s Republic of China

    Xue Zhang, Guangsong Li & Wenbao Han

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  1. Xue Zhang
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  2. Guangsong Li
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  3. Wenbao Han
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Correspondence to Xue Zhang.

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Zhang, X., Li, G. & Han, W. Ticket-Based Authentication for Fast Handover in Wireless Mesh Networks. Wireless Pers Commun 85, 1509–1523 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-015-2853-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-015-2853-9

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