LOCATION FINGERPRINT AS A FACTOR OF AUTHENTICATION OF ACCESS POINTS IN WIRELESS NETWORK DEPLOYMENTS

Usage of Wi-Fi has gone to the next level with ever increase in the number of mobile devices, improved bandwidth and stability of Wireless LANs. There are many indoor and outdoor deployments using Wi-Fi in the form of wireless mesh networks. Administrators have little control on the APs installed in outdoor wireless mesh deployments. While AP authenticity is ensured by verifying its device certificate, but its physical location and safety is always big concern for Administrators. Being outdoor APs, they face always threats in the form of, getting stolen, misplacements, installation of rogue APs etc., Monitoring APs with the help of cameras or manually are very expensive solutions and may not be feasible in certain situations. As we know, once Access Points (APs) are deployed, they usually does not move. APs can use existing features (e.g., radio interface, NDP protocol, GPS etc.,) to detect their unique Location Fingerprint to identify with the physical location. Location Fingerprint is generated based on number of factors such as RRM neighbours, GPS co-ordinates, etc., The technique presented herein propose method, wherein APs periodically report their physical location information to the Network Management System, which generate Location Fingerprint from the collected location information of the AP and record the historical data of the Location Fingerprint of the APs. Whenever AP tries to re-join to the WLC, after completion of first factor authentication, second factor authentication is triggered, wherein WLC asks AP to provide the current location information. Upon receiving the location information from the AP, WLC forward it to the NMS. Further, NMS validate the location information of the AP with the pattern of historical data of the Location Fingerprint. If the pattern matches with the current location information of the AP, it is further allowed to proceed with the onboarding, otherwise, AP is rejected to join