VULNERABILITY-AWARE WIRELESS CLIENT SELECTION FOR SECURE IEEE 802.11 NETWORKS

Abstract

IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) have become the dominant communication technology for enterprise, educational, healthcare, industrial, and smart city environments due to their flexibility, mobility, and cost-effectiveness. Despite continuous advancements in wireless security protocols such as WPA2 and WPA3, the client association process remains largely dependent on communication performance metrics, including received signal strength, channel quality, and bandwidth availability, while overlooking security-related factors. Consequently, wireless clients may unknowingly connect to vulnerable or malicious access points, increasing exposure to cyber threats such as rogue access points, Evil Twin attacks, deauthentication attacks, spoofing, and unauthorized network access. This paper proposes a Vulnerability-Aware Wireless Client Selection (VAWCS) framework that integrates client vulnerability assessment, access point security evaluation, trust computation, and dynamic risk analysis into the IEEE 802.11 association process. The proposed framework enables intelligent selection of secure wireless access points by jointly considering communication performance and cybersecurity posture. The architecture continuously monitors both client and network security conditions, thereby enhancing network resilience, minimizing attack opportunities, improving secure connectivity, and supporting adaptive wireless communication in dynamic IEEE 802.11 environments. Keywords: IEEE 802.11, Wireless Security, Vulnerability Assessment, Client Selection, Trust Management, Risk Analysis, WLAN Security, Cybersecurity.