ZyXEL Communications MAX-100 Series, User Manual

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ZyXEL MAX-100 Series User’s Guide
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P P E N D I X
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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 also 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.
CCMP
All traffic in a WiMAX network is encrypted using CCMP (Counter Mode with Cipher Block
Chaining Message Authentication Protocol). CCMP is based on the 128-bit Advanced
Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm.