Secure handoff protocol in 3GPP LTE networks

Abstract

To provide secure 3GPP LTE-WLAN interworking, Extensible Authentication Protocol-Authentication and Key Agreement (EAP-AKA) is used. However, EAP-AKA has several vulnerabilities such as disclosure of user identity, man-in-the-middle attack, Sequence Number (SQN) synchronization, and additional bandwidth consumption. Therefore, in this paper, we propose new re-authentication protocol for wireless 3GPP LTE. The proposed protocol guarantees stronger security, mutual authentication, and resistance against many attacks. The suggested solution proves its effectiveness following the studies of simulation which carried out according to different criteria handoff latency, loss and blocking rate.