This paper presents a solution for optimizing network access authentication procedure and security context transfer during vertical handover in heterogeneous wireless networks (HWN). Security in HWN is a major challenge due to the vastly different security architectures used within each network. Currently, standardization working groups study the optimization of authentication procedure and security context transfer for seamless handover between heterogeneous networks. The goal of this paper is to provide a security frame work that accounts for heterogeneity in wireless access networks without degrading the level of security currently provided by the individual wireless systems. We propose a new frame work for access network specific authentication optimization and security context transfer during vertical handover preparation phase. We also demonstrate how the proposed security frame work provides improvement in the handover performance.
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