An efficient SIM-based authentication and key distribution method for wireless LANs

In this paper, we propose a subscriber identity module (SIM) based authentication protocol that incorporates the existing mature authentication and billing infrastructure of mobile telephony. During the design, the relationship among power/resource consumption characteristics of authentication protocols, handoff speed, and security level are cautiously considered and analyzed. The proposed SIM-based authentication method achieves the fast handoff speed and minimum resource consumption while achieving the same security level as the EAP-TLS (extensible authentication protocol transport level security) authentication protocol. We demonstrate the capability of the proposed protocol using simulation approach. It is shown that the proposed SIM-based authentication and key distribution method is suitable for achieving a high security level in WLANs while reducing latency of handoffs in wireless local area networks