A dynamic security association control scheme for efficient authentication in wireless networks

In this paper, we present a dynamic security association control scheme to improve system performance during authentication in wireless networks. First, a new architecture composed of licensed authentication centers (LACs) for inter-domain authentication is introduced, in which security associations (SAs) are created and modified on demand, thus reducing the number of SAs and dynamically adjusting the lifetime of an SA. Then, a dynamic SA (DSA) control scheme is developed to determine an optimal threshold time for DSAs by using a utility function for maximizing the bandwidth efficiency. Simulation results reveal the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in terms of the improvement in authentication latency, bandwidth efficiency, and the number of SAs.