Mobile WiMAX network security threats and solutions: A survey

IEEE 802.16 based WiMAX is an emerging wireless Internet technology. Salient features of WiMAX such as high speed internet facility over a long distance, quality of service, scalability, security, and mobility proves it better than Wi-Fi Internet access. Security is a vital requirement to prevent WiMAX network from the various attacks and to increase the reliability. This survey paper presents the threats associated with the layers in WiMAX along with possible solutions. The paper reviews the physical layer threats i.e. scrambling and jamming, MAC layer threats i.e. user authentication and data confidentiality, routing layer threats i.e. black-hole attack and other miscellaneous attacks e.g. Man-in-the-Middle (MITM), Denial of Service (DoS) and Bandwidth Spoofing. The paper observes that jamming attack and eavesdropping of management messages are the most destructive attacks for WiMAX network.