Abstract
In this paper, we address the security challenges for wireless mesh enterprise networks (WMENs). The topology and communication characteristics of WMEN include the following: (a) deployment of the network devices are not planar, rather, devices are deployed over three-dimensional space (e.g., office buildings, shopping malls, grocery stores, etc.); (b) messages, generated/received by a mesh client, traverse through mesh routers in a multihop fashion; and (c) mesh clients, being mostly mobile in nature, may result in misbehaving or be spurious during communications. We propose a security scheme for WMEN in order to ensure that only authorized users are granted network access. Particularly, our scheme includes: (a) a deterministic key distribution technique that perfectly suits the network topology, (b) an efficient session key establishment protocol to achieve the client–router and router–router communications security, and (c) a distributed detection mechanism to identify malicious clients in the network. Analytical and simulation results are presented to verify our proposed solutions.