Wireless and Handheld Security:

Wireless networks are rapidly evolving as an effective medium of data/voice communication. There have been significant advances in wireless radio networks in the last decade. Wireless laptops, scanners and PDAs are gaining popularity in businesses and homes. Convergence of wired and wireless systems as a single corporate Local Area Network (LAN) is desired in future networks. Privacy risks escalate as the popularity of wireless networks increase, and this is one of the most important limitations in deploying them. Information Assurance and data authentication is of utmost importance if the wireless/wired infrastructure is going to be used for commercial/military applications. The growing concern, however, is the inadequacy of the available security standards. 

Along with their research partners at State University of New York at Buffalo, CompSys engineers have designed a system that provides end-to-end security for fixed/wireless communication. A novel key management protocol and a methodology to adapt IPSec/VPN for wireless networks to achieve end-to-end security have been developed. An Intrusion Detection System (IDS) that needs low computational resources, for protection, detection and response is also being investigated. We have also devised a set of alternative solutions that would ensure strong authentication for handheld devices. One of our design focuses is to build a key management system that can adapt to different environment needs, such as level of security, ad hoc measure and performance. The developed design provides user-level as well as device-level authentication.