Access mechanisms in Wi-Fi networks state of art, flaws and proposed solutions

The rapid growth of Wi-Fi networks in recent years has driven both industry and the relevant standards body to respond to the flaws and security problems of the underpinning standard (IEEE 802.11) and in particular to address the problems associated with the Wi-Fi access mechanisms. While IEEE 802.11 task group i developed a new wireless security protocol, IEEE 802.11i also known as robust security network (RSN), the wireless local area network (WLAN) industry represented by the Wi-Fi alliance could not wait for a lengthy standardisation process. Therefore, based around the capabilities of the existing hardware they implemented what now is known as Wi-Fi protected access (WPA). In this paper, an overview of current network access control mechanisms for a Wi-Fi environment is provided. The desired properties of these mechanisms are identified. Finally, some problems and flaws in the IEEE 802.11i access control mechanism such as the flaws in IEEE 802.1X and the weaknesses of EAP are presented and some solutions are proposed.