IEEE Begins to Improve Security of IEEE 802.11 Management Frames Project

The IEEE has approved work to begin on an amendment to the IEEE 802.11™ standard for wireless local area networks (WLAN). The project under development involves a wireless LAN standard amendment for WLAN devices to support protection of management frames. IEEE P802.11w, “Amendment to Standard for Information Technology – Telecommunications and Information Exchange Between Systems – Local and Metropolitan Area Networks – Specific Requirements – Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications: Protected Management Frames,” will provide enhancements to the IEEE 802.11 Medium Access Control Layer to make available mechanisms that enable data integrity, data origin authenticity, replay protection and data confidentiality for selected IEEE 802.11 management frames. The Task Group developing IEEE 802.11w is focused on improving the security of the 802.11 management frames, including but not limited to action management frames and deauthentification and disassociation frames. IEEE P802-11w is sponsored by the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee of the IEEE Computer Society. For further information on this amendment, and other IEEE 802 standards projects, visit www.ieee802.org.