Current Approaches to Authentication in Wireless and Mobile Communications Networks
Günter Schäfer, Andreas Festag, Holger Karl, Adam Wolisz · 2001
This document 1 gives a brief introduction into algorithms and protocols for entity authentication (verifying the identity of communication partners) and analyzes the approaches for realizing authentication in current mobile communication standards. The main results of this comparative analysis concerning an authentication infrastructure for wireless Internet access are, that (1) the protocols as proposed in current IETF working groups still need further evaluation of their security characteristics, and, in particular, (2) do exhibit serious deficiencies regarding the location privacy of mobile nodes. Furthermore, it is concluded that in order to assess the performance implications of (re-)authentication during frequent handovers further study is needed which will be addressed in a future report. 1 This work has been supported by a grant from Siemens AG. Contents 1