Securing wireless communication in heterogeneous environments

With the convergence of mobile devices and the Internet, ubiquitous computing promises to revolutionize the way that we access services and run applications. However, ubiquitous computing environments, in particular, mobile and wireless environments interfaced with the Internet, currently possess security vulnerabilities that are ripe for attack from cyber-threats. Thus, this paper discusses the limitations of current security mechanisms in ubiquitous (but heterogeneous) computing environments and presents a general-purpose infrastructure that addresses these limitations, thus allowing heterogeneous environments to communicate in a secure manner. These heterogeneous environments of the future will be interoperable and will include environments such as wireless sensor networks, mobile communication, and computational grids.