What a Mesh: Formal Security Analysis of WPA3 SAE Wireless Authentication

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Metere, Roberto, Lilli, Mario, Arnaboldi, Luca, Riccobene, Elvinia
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866908909847969792
author Metere, Roberto
Lilli, Mario
Arnaboldi, Luca
Riccobene, Elvinia
author_facet Metere, Roberto
Lilli, Mario
Arnaboldi, Luca
Riccobene, Elvinia
contents The latest Wi-Fi security standard, IEEE 802.11, includes a secure authentication protocol called SAE, whose use is mandatory for WPA3-Personal networks. The protocol is specified at two separate but linked levels: a traditional cryptographic description of the communication logic between network devices, and a state machine description that realises the former in each single device. Current formal verification efforts focus mainly on communication logic. We present detailed formal models of the protocol at both levels, provide precise specifications of its security properties, and analyse machine-checked proofs in ProVerif and ASMETA. The integrated analysis of the above two models is particularly novel, enabling us to identify and address several issues in the current IEEE 802.11 specification more thoroughly than would have been possible otherwise, leading to several official revisions of the standard.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_23352
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle What a Mesh: Formal Security Analysis of WPA3 SAE Wireless Authentication
Metere, Roberto
Lilli, Mario
Arnaboldi, Luca
Riccobene, Elvinia
Cryptography and Security
Networking and Internet Architecture
C.2.2; C.2.1; D.2.4; F.3.1; K.6.5
The latest Wi-Fi security standard, IEEE 802.11, includes a secure authentication protocol called SAE, whose use is mandatory for WPA3-Personal networks. The protocol is specified at two separate but linked levels: a traditional cryptographic description of the communication logic between network devices, and a state machine description that realises the former in each single device. Current formal verification efforts focus mainly on communication logic. We present detailed formal models of the protocol at both levels, provide precise specifications of its security properties, and analyse machine-checked proofs in ProVerif and ASMETA. The integrated analysis of the above two models is particularly novel, enabling us to identify and address several issues in the current IEEE 802.11 specification more thoroughly than would have been possible otherwise, leading to several official revisions of the standard.
title What a Mesh: Formal Security Analysis of WPA3 SAE Wireless Authentication
topic Cryptography and Security
Networking and Internet Architecture
C.2.2; C.2.1; D.2.4; F.3.1; K.6.5
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.23352