International Journal of Innovative and Emerging Research in Engineering
Volume 2, Issue 3, 2015
Available online at www.ijiere.com
International Journal of Innovative and Emerging
Research in Engineering
e-ISSN: 2394 - 3343
p-ISSN: 2394 - 5494
Data security in wireless networks: A Review
Mr. Pranav Soochik
Student of Third Year of Computer Engineering,
Shri Sant Gadge Baba College of Engineering and Technology, Bhusawal,
North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India
[email protected]
ABSTRACT:
In today’s technological era the uses of wireless networks is very essential for the growth & development in
all sectors. With this rapid growth in use of wireless network it is very important to look forward toward the
data security issues in wireless network. Security in networks either in wired or in wireless it is very important
to protect our information or data from attacks like session high-jacking or replay attacks. Different types of
wireless network & security methods are available in market. I am going to discuss the overview of wireless
network world and trying to show the security issues and data security in wireless networks such as symmetric
and asymmetric encryption, cryptography method, block cipher and stream cipher etc.
Keywords: wireless networks, attacks, security.
I.
INTRODUCTION
When we start discuss about the uses of wireless networks in today’s technological era, first we thought about the
security issues about data privacy and risk of unauthenticated users. In next sub-point we had discussed about the wireless
world as an overview and in next main points we had discussed about wireless data attacks and security goals.
A. THE WIRELESS WORLD
Wireless data networks have spread between home users and corporations in an growing way. The main reason behind
this fast adaptation is due to the nature of wireless networks where it provides the flexibility and freedom that wired
networks shortage. The rising of bandwidth capabilities has inspired people to think seriously about replacing wired
networks with wireless networks especially in places where it is hard or exclusive to have wired networks [6]. One of the
main places that can benefit from these ideas is rural zones where wired networks infrastructure is either difficult or
impossible to create due to physical difficulties. The main standards in the wireless world are: 802.11, which describe the
Wireless LAN design and 802.16 which describes the Wireless MAN design. These two wireless networks are usually
known by two acronyms: Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) to be a sign of WLAN and WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for
Microwave Access) to describe WMAN. [3]
1. WIRELESS LAN (WLAN)
Wireless LAN is simply trying to imitate the structure of the wired LANs using alternative standard to transfer data quite
than cables. This standard is electromagnetic waves which are mainly either radio frequency (RF) or infrared frequency
(IR).Wireless LANs consist mainly of two entities: clients or end-user devices and Access Points (AP) [3] as shown in
figure 1.
Figure 1: Wireless WLAN
2. WIRELESS MAN (WMAN)
The idea behind using WMAN is to offer a broadband Internet service using wireless substructure. The idea is very
analogous to a TV broadcast network (shown in Fig). The theoretical speed of WMAN is 75Mbps lengthy to several miles,
which offer an additional to cable and DSL connections in the future [3].As shown in the figure 2.
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Volume 2, Issue 3, 2015
Figure 2: Wireless WMAN
B. INTRODUCTION TO WIRELESS SECURITY
This section outlines some of the basic beginnings in the security world. It starts by describing the goals behind
implementing security in the computer world Then it discuss encryption and decryption concept, the implementation of
both block and stream ciphers, and finally a brief description of the most common encryption standards[6].
II.
WIRELESS NETWORKS ATTACKS
Security in computer world governs the capability of the system to manage, protect and distribute sensitive info. Data
Security was initiate many years before the advent of wireless communication due to the mankind's need to send
information (in war or in peace time) without exposing its content to others. The first and most known machine (Enigma)
was used in WWII by the German military to encrypt their mails. The machine was something similar to a simple typing
machine with a scrambler unit to obscure the content of the messages [6]. From that time till now, many solutions to
security extortions have been familiarized, and most of them were abandoned or replaced by better security criteria. These
ongoing changes supported the security field to be a perpetual hot topic. In the wireless world security extortions were not
known to public people till prices of wireless equipment went down about 2000. Afore that date, the military was the
number one client for wireless security products especially during the cold war.
A. SECURITY ATTACKS
Below is a list of the most common attack kinds known in both wired and wireless networks. Most of the security attacks
and extortions are listed under the following categories [6].
1. Traffic Analysis
In this type of attacks the attacker uses the statistics of network connectivity and activity to find information about the
attacked networks. The Information includes AP location, AP SSID and the kind of protocol used by the study of size and
types of Packets.
2. Passive Eavesdropping
Attackers in this type set themselves in snuffling way, where they listen to all the network traffic hoping to quotation
information from it. This kind of attack is only useful with unencrypted networks and stream cipher encrypted ones.
3. Active Eavesdropping
It is related to passive eavesdropping but the attacker tries to change the data on the packet, or to insert a complete packet
in the stream of data.
4. Session High-Jacking
The attacker attacks the dishonesty of the session by trying to hijack an authorized session from an authorized user.
5. Replay Attacks
In this kind of attack the attacker uses the information from earlier authenticated sessions to gain access to the network.
III.
WIRELESS NETWORKS SECURITY GOALS
Every security system must provide a bundle of security functions that can assure the privacy of the system. These
functions are typically referred to as the goals of the security system. These aims can be planned under the following main
types
Authentication: This means that before sending and receiving data by the system, the receiver and sender identity should
be confirmed and verified.
Secrecy or Confidentiality: Usually this function (feature) is how most people identify a safe system. It means that simply
the authenticated people are able to interpret the message or date content and no one else.
Integrity: Integrity means that the content of the communicated data is assured to be free from any type of alteration
between the end points sender and receiver. The basic procedure of integrity is packet check sum in IPv4 packets.
Non-Repudiation: This function implies that neither the sender nor the receiver can falsely deny that they have sent a
certain message.
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Service Reliability and Availability: Since secure systems typically get attacked by intruders which may affect their
availability and kind of service to their users. Such systems should offer a system to grant their users the quality of service
they expect [6].
A. DATA ENCRYPTION
To send data securely among two nodes, the system must encrypt the data or systematically scramble info so that it
cannot be read without knowing the coding key [9].As shown in figure 3.
Figure 3: Data encryption and decryption
1. SYMMETRIC ENCRYPTION
In this type of encryption, the sender and the receiver agree on a secret key. Then they use this secret key to encrypt and
decrypt their sent mails Node A and B mainly on the encryption technique to be used in encryption and decryption of
interconnected data. Then they approve on the secret key that both of them will use in this connection. After the encryption
system finishes, node A starts sending its data that is encrypted with the key. On the other side at node B uses the same
shared key to decrypt the encrypted messages [3].
2. ASYMMETRIC ENCRYPTION
Asymmetric encryption is the further kind of encryption where two keys are used, to describe more, what Key1 can
encrypt only and Key2 can decrypt, vice versa. It is also known as Public Key Cryptography (PKC) because users tend to
use two keys are public key, which is known to the public and another one is private key which is known only to the user.
After approving on the type of encryption to be used in the connection, node B sends its public key to A. A node uses the
received public key to encrypt its mails. Then when the encrypted mails reach, node B uses its private key to decrypt them
[3].
B. BLOCK CIPHER
In this process data is encrypted and decrypted if from of blocks. In its meekest type, you divide the simple text into
blocks which are then fed into the cipher system to products Blocks of cipher text. There are various variances of block
cipher, where altered methods are used to strengthen the security of the system. The furthermost common methods are:
ECB (Electronic Codebook Mode) &CBC (Chain Block Chaining Mode), and OFB (Output Feedback Mode), ECB is the
simple method of clock cipher where data blocks are encrypted openly to generate its correspondent ciphered blocks. CBC
mode usages the cipher block from the earlier step of encryption in the current one which forms a chain-like encryption
process, OFB operates on simple text in away similar to stream cipher that will be described below, where the encryption
key used in each step depends on the encryption key from the earlier step [4].As shown in figure 4.
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Figure 4: Block cipher ECB mode
C. STREAM CIPHER
Stream cipher functions on a stream of data by working on it bit by bit. Stream cipher contains of two major components:
a key stream generator and a mixing function. the Mixing function is usually just an XOR function while key stream
generator is the main unit in stream cipher encryption method. For example, if the key stream generator products a series
of zeros, as the output ciphered stream will be matching to the original simple text [4].As shown in figure 5.
Figure 5: Stream cipher- Simple mode
IV.
CONCLUSION
I have discussed about the wireless networks with their uses, described the security attack issues and data security goals
plan list for wireless network and also discussed about the data security methods using in today’s trend such as symmetric
and asymmetric data encryption, about cipher text process and we conclude that we can’t control other the session hijacking
techniques or data loss completely by a single method or technique, we need to develop our data privacy techniques for
various security attacks & hacking.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I feel great pleasure in submitting this paper on “Data security in wireless networks: A Review”. I would like to thank
my honorable Principal, Dr. R. P. Singh, and special thanks to Head of Department and my guide Prof. D. D. Patil &
sincere thanks to all the respected teaching faculties of department of computer science & engineering of shri sant gadge
baba college of engineering and technology bhusawal(M.H.), INDIA.
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