Abstract: Partitions can play a significant role in minimising cochannel
interference of Wireless LANs by attenuating signals across
room boundaries. This could pave the way towards higher density
deployments in home and office environments through spatial
channel reuse. Yet, due to protocol limitations, the latest incantation
of IEEE 802.11 standard is still unable to take advantage of this fact:
Despite having clearly adequate Signal to Interference Ratio (SIR)
over co-channel neighbouring networks in other rooms, its goodput
falls significantly lower than its maximum in the absence of cochannel
interferers. In this paper, we describe how this situation can
be remedied via modest modifications to the standard.
Abstract: IEEE has recently incorporated CCMP protocol to provide robust security to IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs. It is found that CCMP has been designed with a weak nonce construction and transmission mechanism, which leads to the exposure of initial counter value. This weak construction of nonce renders the protocol vulnerable to attacks by intruders. This paper presents how the initial counter can be pre-computed by the intruder. This vulnerability of counter block value leads to pre-computation attack on the counter mode encryption of CCMP. The failure of the counter mode will result in the collapse of the whole security mechanism of 802.11 WLAN.