Securing wireless communication against dictionary attacks without using PKI

Security of 802.11x wireless encryption standards are increasingly coming under scrutiny as compared to other security protocols and standards. The attacks on 802.11x wireless security protocols are exacerbated by the ease with which attackers can monitor radio signals and passively capture packets as compared to LAN or other physical networks. The intent of this research is to analyze the feasibility of designing a wireless authentication protocol, which is secure against dictionary attacks, for home networks and small wireless networks without using PKI or transport layer security. The research focuses mainly on pre-shared key authentication mechanisms in order to reduce the overhead of directory servers or radius based authentication mechanisms.