METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR AUTHENTICATING A POINT OF ACCESS
First Claim
1. A method of detecting the intervention of a rogue point of access in a communication between a wireless device and a wired network reachable via a genuine point of access, said method comprising:
- operating said wired network to provide to a comparator, data indicative of an identifier of said wireless device presented to it in said communication;
operating said wireless device to provide to the comparator, data indicative of the identifier of the wireless device; and
operating said comparator to compare the two sets of data, and to signal the result of said comparison to said wireless device.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Rogue or malicious access points pose a threat to wireless networks (32) and the users of these networks. In order to prevent or reduce this threat a method and system is proposed that verifies that an access point (31) is genuine and not rogue before setting up a connection between the access point and a wireless device (34). The authentication is based on comparing an identifier of the wireless device (34) obtained from an authentication server (33, 35) in the wired network to an identifier of a wireless device obtained directly from the wireless device. A comparator (39) in an information server (36) receives the two sets of data and compares the two identifiers and if they match the access point is verified as genuine.
-
Citations
17 Claims
-
1. A method of detecting the intervention of a rogue point of access in a communication between a wireless device and a wired network reachable via a genuine point of access, said method comprising:
-
operating said wired network to provide to a comparator, data indicative of an identifier of said wireless device presented to it in said communication;
operating said wireless device to provide to the comparator, data indicative of the identifier of the wireless device; andoperating said comparator to compare the two sets of data, and to signal the result of said comparison to said wireless device. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16)
-
-
11. A system for detecting the intervention of a rogue point of access in a communication between a wireless device and a wired network reachable via a genuine point of access, said system comprising:
-
means in said wired network for providing to a comparator data indicative of an identifier of the wireless device presented to it in said communication;
means in said wireless device for providing to said comparator data indicative of the identifier of the wireless device;a comparator operated to compare the two sets of data; and means for signaling the result of said comparison to said wireless device. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13)
-
-
17. A comparator arranged in operation to receive from a wired network data indicative of an identifier used by a wireless device in communication with the wired network via a point of access which provides wireless access to the wired network;
- and to receive from a wireless device data indicative of an identifier of the wireless device seeking to authenticate said point of access and to compare the two sets of data and detecting intervention of a rogue point of access in a communications between said wireless device and the wired network.
Specification