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ARTICLE
Ari Takanen, CTO, Codenomicon Ltd. By now, everyone understands that security is not an add-on technology. WiMAX is no different from other next generation technologies. WiMAX security has to be built in, and considered at all phases in the software development including design, implementation and testing. After release of the products, the remaining defects are sorted out by good post-deployment plans during the product lifecycle. Finally the actual deployment guidelines set the true security of the network. Any security mechanism is only useful if used, and security update is only effective if deployed. Discussion about WiMAX security is polarized. Some security practitioners still see security as a set of features, such as strong encryption and authentication mechanisms. On the other hand, a skilled security auditor will analyze the complexity of the used communication interfaces, and will recognize the same security features as additional opportunities to break the used network elements. Let’s assume that WiMAX designs are now fixed, and mostly secure. WiMAX uses the best practices in encryption to protect from third party access. Still, some aspects of the WiMAX security design look suspicious. For example, the unencrypted management frames are interesting from security analysis point of view. Only time will tell if the management channel will actually be exploited by the evil-doers. But even with the best possible protocol design, the job is not even half done! Most of the real world vulnerabilities in communication devices are due to programming errors in various implementations rather than due to inherently broken protocol design. In this regard, WiMAX should be an interesting target for security analysis. Some aspects of security are just subsets of quality. All robustness and reliability improvements will lead directly to decreased development and deployment costs, as well as increase public acceptance and ensure faster adoption. Anyone who has implemented protocol parsers can probably agree that the more complex the protocol specification is, the more likely it is that there are some lurking mistakes in the implementation. Complex protocols used in WiMAX, such as EAP and X.509, can actually prove to be sweet spots for those who look to score against WiMAX security. And WiMAX is not only about the used wireless protocols. For true end-to-end security the IP stack of base station and all the layers above need to be tested for robustness, and configured properly. From the users perspective a DoS attack on upper layer services causes as much havoc as the low-level MAC problems. Are we bound to repeat the deployment mistakes of previous wireless technology platforms? If we look at the past mistakes in, for example, Bluetooth and WiFi, we can see that these technologies have become notorious for severe security shortcomings during their relatively short history. New vulnerabilities and exploits are reported and demonstrated every week in live and public wireless networks. This has partially resulted in the loss of credibility for all wireless technologies. Based on my discussions with various security experts there are two schools at the moment: one is expecting to see security issues similar to WiFi, and the other believes that the threats are not severe as security is built-in into WiMAX. However, implementation quality is still being ignored as the most important factor of security. Now it is the time to make a difference, and everyone is involved in these next steps. What can we do to avoid making the same mistakes all over again with WiMAX? Codenomicon Codenomicon develops robustness testing tools for proactive elimination and prevention of security vulnerabilities. Major manufacturers, service providers and enterprises use these products for security assessment, software development, risk analysis, purchase criteria and acceptance testing. Codenomicon test tools are available for testing the security of any communication devices and architectures. http://www.codenomicon.com/
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