Route Optimized Secured and Improved Encryption Protocol for Wireless Ad Hoc Network

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol was adopted to protect authorized users from unauthorized access and eavesdropping in the IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs (WLAN). However, it has been proved that the WEP protocol fails to provide data confidentiality and authentication. The WEP provides encrypted communication using an encryption key between the client station and Access point (AP). All client stations and APs on a network use the same key to encrypt and decrypt data. The key resides on both the client station and the AP. The above rendered WEP protocol is naked to major forms of attack. Thus in this paper a keyed-message authentication code aimed at preventing an intruder from tampering with packets in transit is proposed, with a revised authentication scheme to avoid authentication spoofing and reduce replay attacks. We also employed private key scheme alongside the use of day and session keys that counters several attacks.