This paper presents a formal analysis of an authentication handover framework. The framework provides a fast re-authentication mechanism to authenticate a mobile node that moves through different domains without the need to communicate with the home domain. We model the protocol using the high level protocol specification language (HLPSL) and we verify our model using the AVISPA model checking tool. Two main security properties are checked: authenticity and secrecy. We consider different scenarios in order to verify the protocol. Our results show that the protocol fulfills its requirements in almost all tested scenarios.

Pervasive wireless networking requires continuous connection to the Internet while moving from one administration domain to another. To enable continuous connection seamless handover has to be ensured. A concept to ensure seamless handover is the make-before-break approach which can be achieved by performing the pre-authentication in the new domain while maintaining connection to current domain. The duration of the authentication is critical for the handover process because if the mobile nodes move very fast the remaining amount of time of connection to the current domain can become very limited. Therefore, it is a vital issue for seamless mobility to study the authentication performance of a pre-authentication framework. In this paper we model an authentication infrastructure and consider a scenario in which a high number of nodes handover to a new administration domain. The simulation of the authentication process shows the relation between authentication performance and traffic intensity. Furthermore we identify some critical points and potential bottlenecks of this pre-authentication approach.