A robust security scheme for wireless mesh enterprise networks

In this paper, we address the security challenges for wireless mesh enterprise networks (WMENs). The topology and communication characteristics of WMEN include the following: (a) deployment of the network devices are not planar, rather, devices are deployed over three-dimensional space (e.g., office buildings, shopping malls, grocery stores, etc.); (b) messages, generated/received by a mesh client, traverse through mesh routers in a multihop fashion; and (c) mesh clients, being mostly mobile in nature, may result in misbehaving or be spurious during communications. We propose a security scheme for WMEN in order to ensure that only authorized users are granted network access. Particularly, our scheme includes: (a) a deterministic key distribution technique that perfectly suits the network topology, (b) an efficient session key establishment protocol to achieve the client–router and router–router communications security, and (c) a distributed detection mechanism to identify malicious clients in the network. Analytical and simulation results are presented to verify our proposed solutions.