PROBABILISTIC SECURITY ASSESSMENT OF IEEE 802.11 ASSOCIATION AND ROAMING MECHANISMS

Abstract

IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) have become the primary communication infrastructure for enterprise, educational, healthcare, industrial, and Internet of Things (IoT) environments. As wireless users frequently associate with different access points and roam across multiple network cells, maintaining secure connectivity has become increasingly challenging. Conventional IEEE 802.11 association and roaming mechanisms primarily emphasize communication efficiency and seamless mobility while providing limited consideration for dynamic cybersecurity risks. Consequently, wireless clients remain vulnerable to rogue access points, Evil Twin attacks, deauthentication attacks, session hijacking, replay attacks, and credential compromise during association and roaming procedures. This paper proposes a Probabilistic Security Assessment (PSA) framework that evaluates the security risk associated with IEEE 802.11 association and roaming decisions using probabilistic threat estimation, trust evaluation, vulnerability assessment, and behavioral analysis. The proposed framework continuously estimates attack probability and dynamically adapts wireless association decisions according to evolving network conditions. The approach improves wireless security, enhances secure mobility, minimizes attack exposure, and provides intelligent decision support for nextgeneration IEEE 802.11 wireless networks. Keywords: IEEE 802.11, Wireless Security, Probabilistic Security Assessment, Association Mechanism, Roaming, WLAN Security, Risk Assessment, Cybersecurity