User’s Guide 257
APPENDIX A WiMAX Security
Wireless security is vital to protect your wireless communications. Without it,
information transmitted over the wireless network would be accessible to any
networking device within range.
User Authentication and Data Encryption
The WiMAX (IEEE 802.16) standard employs user authentication and encryption to
ensure secured communication at all times.
User authentication is the process of confirming a user’s identity and level of
authorization. Data encryption is the process of encoding information so that it
cannot be read by anyone who does not know the code.
WiMAX uses PKMv2 (Privacy Key Management version 2) for authentication, and
CCMP (Counter Mode with Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Protocol)
for data encryption.
WiMAX supports EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol, RFC 2486) which allows
additional authentication methods to be deployed with no changes to the base
station or the mobile or subscriber stations.
PKMv2
PKMv2 is a procedure that allows authentication of a mobile or subscriber station
and negotiation of a public key to encrypt traffic between the MS/SS and the base
station. PKMv2 uses standard EAP methods such as Transport Layer Security
(EAP-TLS) or Tunneled TLS (EAP-TTLS) for secure communication.
In cryptography, a ‘key’ is a piece of information, typically a string of random
numbers and letters, that can be used to ‘lock’ (encrypt) or ‘unlock’ (decrypt) a
message. Public key encryption uses key pairs, which consist of a public (freely
available) key and a private (secret) key. The public key is used for encryption
and the private key is used for decryption. You can decrypt a message only if you
have the private key. Public key certificates (or ‘digital IDs’) allow users to verify
each other’s identity.