Enhancing Security in Wireless Networks Using Positioning Techniques

Security is a key issue in any wireless environment. This paper considers the problem of using two alternative positioning technologies for secure authentications in wireless networks. Two different positioning techniques namely, Global Positioning System (GPS) and network-based positioning technique are merged for this purpose. For validation purposes network-based positioning is achieved through Ekahau location-enabling enterprise for Wi-Fi networks. The authentication approach for any new node that wishes to enter the wireless network, requests from the node its position which can be computed using user-centric GPS receiver. Then the network identifies user position using network-centric approach and compares the results. In case user tries to mislead the network on its true location the network will identify the unauthorized access attempt. Doing so, shall improve the security of the network from unknown intruders who claim to be in the network.