Differentiating IEEE 802.11i resource and security requirement for mobile and non-mobile devices

Abstract

AES-CCMP128 incorporates two sophisticated cryptographic techniques that are counter mode and CBC-MAC, and adapts them to Ethernet frames. This is to provide a robust security protocol between the mobile clients and furthermore the mobility characteristic of mobile devices makes it difficult for an eavesdropper to spot data patterns. However adding security functionality to mobile devices can reduce the Wi-Fi time connection rate due to the limited resources of mobile devices. Therefore, the lack of balance between the security level, resource usage and network speed required in mobile devices is eminent. The aim of this study is to speed up the Wi-Fi connection in mobile devices and also to optimize the resource usage by reducing two rounds of AES-CCMP resulting in 20% increase in network connection speed and optimization in the resource usage of mobile devices. Round 8 and Round 9 of AES-CCMP are the suggested results named “Short Time” (ST) and “Long Time” (LT) usage of mobile devices for less than two hours and more than two hours respectively. On the other hand, non-mobile devices do not have the same restrictions instead higher CPU, memory, battery charge and hardware. But on the other hand, the stationary characteristic makes non-mobile device an easy target to attack. Therefore, the security level they require is higher in comparison to that of mobile devices but the resource usage is yet to be optimized. Consequently, the possibility of AES-256 in 9 rounds has been investigated in this study for non-mobile devices considering Moore’s law and as such, 10% optimization has been achieved in the resource usage. The proposed scenarios of ST and LT are implemented by using C# language and the results are gained from execution time, memory usage, avalanche effect and crypt analysis for non-mobile and mobile devices