Patent Description:
The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) <NUM>. 11ba Taskgroup is currently in the process of standardizing wireless communication technologies related to the operations of a wake-up radio (WUR) apparatus. The WUR apparatus is a companion radio apparatus to the primary connectivity radio (PCR) apparatus and may operate in the same frequency band as the PCR or may also operate in a different frequency band. The PCR may be any of the existing mainstream IEEE <NUM> amendments (<NUM>. 11a, <NUM>, <NUM>. 11n or <NUM>. 11ac) or even other applicable future amendments (e.g. <NUM>. The purpose of the WUR apparatus is to trigger the transition of the PCR apparatus out of sleep upon reception of a valid wake-up packet (also known as WUR PHY Protocol Data Unit (PPDU)) , while the PCR is used as the primary wireless communication radio. The PCR apparatus is only turned on during active communication, while during period of idle listening, the PCR apparatus is turned off and only the WUR apparatus is operating. The WUR apparatus is expected to have active receiver power consumption less than one milliwatt, which is much lesser compared to the active receiver power consumption of the PCR apparatus. Devices with a WUR apparatus may be called WUR devices and WUR mode may refer to operation mode where only the WUR is in operation while the PCR is turned off, while PCR mode may refer to operations with the PCR apparatus turned on.

The IEEE <NUM>. 11ba amendment is targeted at applications and Internet-of-Things (IOT) use cases in which the communication devices are usually powered by a battery and it is highly desirable to extend the battery lifetime while maintaining reasonably low latency.

[PL <NUM>] <CIT>et. , "Dynamically hashed MAC address for transmission in a network".

Since much of the power saving for WUR devices is expected to be a result of the devices turning off the main PCR apparatus and staying in the WUR mode for extended period of time, unnecessary switching to the PCR mode is detrimental to the device's battery life. Due to the low data rates available for communication in the WUR mode, the WUR signal is expected to be much simpler and shorter as compared to the PCR signal. As a result, WUR signals are very easy to be captured and reproduced by malicious devices for ulterior motives. This makes WUR devices especially susceptible to replay attacks, whereby an attacker captures genuine WUR signals used by a central controller to wake up WUR devices and uses them in the future to falsely wake up the WUR devices with the intent of causing battery drainage. Such attacks may also be known as power exhausting attacks or denial of sleep attacks.

One non-limiting and exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure provides means for transmission and reception of secure WUR signals and prevent the above mentioned malicious attacks on WUR devices.

The scope of the invention is defined in the independent claims.

The communication apparatus and communication method described in the present disclosure provides means for transmission and reception of secure WUR signals and prevent false wake ups as a result of malicious attacks on WUR devices.

The present disclosure can be better understood with the aid of following figures and embodiments. The embodiments described here are merely exemplary in nature and are used to describe some of the possible applications and uses of the present disclosure and should not be taken as limiting the present disclosure with regard to alternative embodiments that are not explicitly described herein.

<FIG> shows an example of a wireless communication network <NUM> in which the present disclosure may be applied. The wireless communication may be based on popular wireless standards such as IEEE <NUM>. The wireless communication network <NUM> may comprise an Access Point (AP) <NUM> and three stations (STA) <NUM>, <NUM> and <NUM> associated with the AP <NUM>. The AP <NUM> is equipped with a Primary Connectivity Radio (PCR) apparatus (hereinafter stated simply as "PCR") <NUM> which is capable of transmitting and receiving wireless signals in the <NUM> waveform (e.g. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)) as well as being capable of transmitting wireless signals in the Wake-up radio (WUR) waveform (e.g. On-Off Keying (OOK)). STAs <NUM>, <NUM> and <NUM> are WUR capable STAs and are equipped with PCRs <NUM>, <NUM> and <NUM> respectively as well as Wake-up radio receivers (WURx) apparatus (hereinafter stated simply as "WURx") <NUM>, <NUM> and <NUM> respectively. STAs <NUM> and <NUM> are capable of transmitting and receiving <NUM> signals and are also capable of receiving WUR signals. The PCRs <NUM> and <NUM> may only be turned on during active communication (PCR mode), while during period of idle listening, the PCRs may be turned off and only the WURx <NUM> and <NUM> may be operating (WUR mode). STA <NUM> however may be a custom made device that has all the functionalities of a WUR capable STA and in addition its PCR <NUM> also has the ability to transmit wireless signals in the Wake-up radio (WUR) waveform ((OOK). Or STA <NUM> may simply be a device that possesses both the WUR AP functionalities as well as the WUR STA functionalities. When the AP <NUM> needs to communicate with STAs operating in WUR mode, it may first transmit wake-up signal to instruct the STAs to transit to PCR mode by turning on the respective PCRs and switching off the WURx. Subsequently the AP and the STAs may perform communication over the PCR. Once the communication is over, the STAs may switch back to WUR mode by switching off the PCR and turning on the WURx.

<FIG> shows the wake-up signal transmission scheme being considered in the IEEE <NUM>. 11ba Taskgroup. The wake-up signal may be represented as the WUR PHY Protocol Data Unit (PPDU) <NUM>. The WUR PPDU <NUM> is composed of two distinct portions. The first portion is comprised of a <NUM> legacy (also known as non-high-throughput (HT)) <NUM> preamble <NUM> and one extra OFDM symbol <NUM> called WUR Mark, which are transmitted in the <NUM> OFDM waveform over the entire <NUM> channel. The second portion is the wake-up packet (WUP) payload <NUM> which is transmitted in a WUR OOK waveform in a narrower sub-channel within the <NUM> channel, for example a <NUM> sub-channel. Although only a single WUP Payload <NUM> is shown in <FIG>, it is also possible that more than one, for example three WUP Payloads, are transmitted on different, non-overlapping sub-channels within the <NUM> channel.

The legacy <NUM> preamble <NUM> provides coexistence with legacy <NUM> STAs that do not understand the WUR signals. Preamble <NUM> further comprises a non-HT Short Training Field (L-STF) <NUM>, a non-HT Long Training Field (L-LTF) <NUM> and a non-HT SIGNAL field (L-SIG) <NUM>. The L-SIG <NUM> carries information regarding the length of the WUP payload <NUM>, allowing legacy <NUM> devices to defer their transmissions for the correct duration. The WUR Mark <NUM> of duration <NUM> micro-seconds modulated in Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) is transmitted right after the L-SIG <NUM> to prevent <NUM>. 11n devices from wrongly decoding the WUR PPDU <NUM> as being an <NUM>. 11n packet.

The WUP Payload <NUM> carries the actual wake-up signal and comprises a wake-up preamble <NUM> and a WUR frame <NUM>. The wake-up preamble <NUM> is used for automatic gain control (AGC), timing synchronization, packet detection etc., while the WUR frame <NUM> carries the control information. The WUR frame <NUM> may also be known as a WUR MAC Protocol Data Unit (MPDU) and may be further composed of various sub-fields such as a MAC header <NUM>, a Frame check sequence (FCS) <NUM> as well as the optional Frame body <NUM>. The MAC header <NUM> may be further comprised of a Frame control field <NUM> that species the frame Type, frame length etc., an Address field <NUM> that may carry either one of the Transmitter Address, Receiver address or both. Other control information may be carried in the TD Control field <NUM> depending on the frame Type. For example in WUR beacon frames, the TD Control field <NUM> may carry a timestamp field, while in unicast WUR frames, the TD Control field <NUM> may carry a packet number etc..

<FIG> depicts a frame transmission sequence <NUM> that illustrates an example replay attack launched by an attacker in the wireless network <NUM> in <FIG>. The attacker may be the STA <NUM> in <FIG>, while the AP and the STA may be the AP <NUM> and STA <NUM> in <FIG> respectively. STA <NUM> may have undergone WUR mode negotiation with AP <NUM> and may be operating in WUR mode with only its WURx <NUM> in operation while its PCR <NUM> is turned off. The attacker STA <NUM> on the other hand has both its WURx <NUM> as well as PCR <NUM> turned on and may be monitoring the traffic between AP <NUM> and STA <NUM>. When the AP <NUM> gets data from the upper layer protocol destined for STA <NUM>, it saves the data frame in buffer and transmits a WUR PPDU <NUM> to wake STA <NUM>. Upon receiving the WUR PPDU <NUM>, STA <NUM> verifies that the PPDU is addressed to it and proceeds to turn on its PCR <NUM> and transmit a PS-Poll frame <NUM> to the AP <NUM>. In the meanwhile, the WURx <NUM> of attacker <NUM> also receives the WUR PPDU <NUM> and saves it in memory for future use. The AP <NUM> responds to the PS-Poll frame <NUM> by transmitting the buffered data frame <NUM> to STA <NUM>. STA <NUM> confirms the receipt of the data frame <NUM> by sending the acknowledgement (ACK) frame <NUM> to the AP <NUM> and may proceed to WUR mode by turning off its PCR radio <NUM>. At a later point in time, the attacker STA <NUM> may use the captured WUR PPDU <NUM> to launch a replay attack on STA <NUM> by retransmitting the WUR PPDU <NUM> to it, causing it to transition to PCR mode. Since the WUR PPDU <NUM> is a replay of a valid WUR PPDU transmitted by AP <NUM> in the past, it appears to be a valid WUR PPDU to STA <NUM> and it may proceed to transmit another PS-Poll frame <NUM> and may wait for AP <NUM> to send data frame to it. Eventually, when STA <NUM> does not receive any frames from the AP, it may time out of the PCR mode and goes back to WUR mode, however it would already have lost some power unnecessarily transitioning to PCR mode. If no measures are implemented to mitigate such attacks, the attacker STA <NUM> may repeat the replay attack until STA <NUM> completely runs out of battery.

Several exemplary embodiments are described in detail in later sections to describe the disclosure in detail. The various embodiments for mitigating malicious false wake up attacks as per the present disclosure are described in detail in the following sections.

<FIG> depicts the frame exchange sequence <NUM> used by a WUR STA to negotiate the parameters used during WUR mode with its AP. The frame exchange <NUM> needs to be completed before a WUR STA enters the WUR mode for the first time. It may also be used subsequently to change parameters related to WUR mode and also to enter or exit the WUR mode. WUR Action frame <NUM> in <FIG> may be used for the WUR mode negotiations. A WUR STA initiates the WUR mode negotiation by transmitting a WUR Mode Request frame <NUM>, which may be a variant of the WUR Action frame <NUM> with the WUR Mode Request/Response field <NUM> in the WUR Mode element <NUM> set to WUR Mode Request. Alternatively, the WUR Mode Request indication may also be carried within the WUR Action field <NUM>. In either case, a WUR Mode Request frame refers to a WUR Action frame that carries an indication for WUR Mode request. Although not shown in <FIG>, the WUR mode element may also carry other parameters related to WUR mode operation such as duty cycle parameters etc. As per the first embodiment, the WUR mode element also contains a Security field <NUM> that may be set to <NUM> by a WUR STA to request the AP to enable secure transmission mode for future transmissions of WUR PPDUs. Secure WUR transmission may be requested by WUR STAs right from the beginning or it may only be requested when a WUR STA detects that it is under attack. Although it may not be possible for a WUR STA to detect an attack just from one or two false wake ups, if the STA keeps getting woken up without receiving any follow up downlink frames from the AP for more than a certain threshold value, for example <NUM> times, the STA may consider itself under attack and request for security to be enabled. Upon receiving the WUR Mode request frame <NUM>, the AP responds with the WUR mode response frame <NUM>, which is another variant of the WUR Action frame <NUM> in <FIG> with the WUR Mode Request/Response field <NUM> in the WUR Mode element <NUM> set to WUR Mode Response. Alternatively, the WUR mode response indication may also be carried within the WUR Action field <NUM>. In either case, a WUR Mode Response frame refers to a WUR Action frame that carries an indication for WUR Mode response. Aside from the parameters necessary for the WUR STA's WUR mode operation, if the WUR STA had requested security to be enabled for WUR transmissions, the AP also includes the WUR Security element <NUM> in <FIG> in the WUR mode response frame <NUM> carrying the parameters required for secure WUR communication. Once the security parameters have been notified, the AP will use the secure WUR PPDU <NUM> when it needs to wake the WUR STA.

The WUR security element <NUM> in <FIG> carries the WUR Security Parameters <NUM> that contains the information regarding the secret keys to be used by a WUR STA to receive secure WUR PPDUs. Since a WUR STA is also an IEEE <NUM> device, it makes sense that the STA reuses the existing <NUM> security framework as much as possible. Robust security network association (RSNA) is the default security protocol used by IEEE <NUM> devices. Although within RSNA there are several security algorithms such as counter mode with cipher-block chaining message authentication code protocol (CCMP), Galois/counter mode (GCM) protocol (GCMP), broadcast/multicast integrity protocol (BIP) etc., as well as several hash algorithms, the secret Keys that these algorithms use may be broadly classified as either Pairwise Key or Group Key. Pairwise Keys are used for unicast communication between a pair of devices, while Group Keys are used for broadcast or multicast communication. The Pairwise Cipher Suite field <NUM> indicates the Cipher suite to be used for unicast WUR PPDUs and is identified by the organizationally unique identifier (OUI) field <NUM> and the Suite Type field <NUM>. The pairwise Key ID field <NUM> indicates the identifier of the Pairwise Key to be used for WUR PPDUs if more than one Pairwise Key has been negotiated between the AP and the WUR STA. The Group Key count <NUM> indicates the number of Group Keys included in the element. If the same Group Key is to be used for all WUR broadcast and multicast PPDUs, only one Group Key is required, however if the AP decides to use different Group Keys for broadcast and multicast WUR PPDUs, two or more Group Keys may be included in the element. The Group Key Data field <NUM>, is variable in length, and includes the information regarding the Group Keys. For each included Group Key, the Group Cipher Suite field <NUM> indicates the Cipher suite to be used for broadcast or multicast WUR PPDUs and is identified by the organizationally unique identifier (OUI) field <NUM> and the Suite Type field <NUM>. The Group Key Info field <NUM> identifies a Group Key as well as its use. The Key ID field <NUM> indicates the identifier of the Group key to be used for WUR PPDUs if more than one Key has been negotiated between the AP and the WUR STA; the GTK/IGTK field <NUM> indicates whether the Group Key is Group Temporal Key (GTK) or Integrity Group Temporal Key (IGTK) and the B'cast/M'cast field <NUM> indicates whether the Group Key is to be used or broadcast or multicast WUR PPDUs. The Group ID field <NUM> may be used to specify a particular multicast group with which the Group Key is associated and this field is set only if the B'cast/M'cast field <NUM> is set as multicast. The Key Len field <NUM> indicates the length of the Wrapped Key field <NUM> and may be set to <NUM> if the Wrapped Key field <NUM> is not included in the element. When the Key ID field indicates that the Group Key to be used for WUR PPDUs is the same as that negotiated for use in PCR, the Wrapped Key field <NUM> is omitted, else the Wrapped Key field <NUM> contains the encrypted GTK or IGTK Key to be used for WUR PPDUs.

<FIG> depicts the WUR mode negotiation process <NUM> in which the AP and WUR STA negotiates separate secret Keys to be used exclusively for WUR PPDUs. Even though it would be possible to reuse the same secret Keys for WUR PPDUs as the ones used for PCR communications, if the WUR STA has the capability, the AP may also initiate a separate <NUM> way handshake process <NUM> with the WUR STA to obtain the PTK and GTK/IGTK to be used exclusively for WUR PPDUs. Since the PCR mode of operation and the WUR mode of operation are very distinct from each other and a STA may only operate in either one mode at a time, generating separate secret keys to be used exclusively for WUR PPDUs may be beneficial as the security risks are isolated to each mode of operation and the risk of a cryptographic salt being repeated for a secret key is minimized. In addition, renegotiation of the Group Keys used for PCR need not affect the Group Keys used for WUR PPDUs. Upon receiving the WUR Mode Request frame <NUM> from a STA requesting security to be enabled for WUR PPDUs in a WUR Mode Request procedure <NUM>, the AP may choose to initiate the <NUM> way handshake <NUM> to derive separate secrets Keys used to encode/decode WUR PPDUs. The <NUM> way handshake <NUM>, shown within the dotted box, is the same as used in RSNA when a STA associates with the AP to negotiate the Pairwise Transient Key (PTK) and Group Keys (GTK and IGTK) to be used for secure sessions except that the secret Keys are meant to be used exclusively for WUR PPDUs and hence the secret Keys may be referred to as W-PTK, W-GTK and W-IGTK to differentiate them from the secret Keys used during PCR communications. The AP concludes the WUR mode negotiation by transmitting the WUR Mode Response frame <NUM> which carries the rest of the parameters necessary for the WUR STA to enter WUR mode in a WUR Mode Response procedure <NUM>. In this case the WUR Mode Response frame <NUM> does not include the Wrapped Key field <NUM> shown in <FIG>. However the AP may choose to transmit unsolicited WUR Mode Response frame <NUM> in <FIG> that includes the Wrapped Key field <NUM> to the WUR STA at a future time to update the Group Keys in the event that the Group Keys may have changed while the WUR STA was in WUR mode.

<FIG> is the table <NUM> of the OUI and Suite Type encoding used in the WUR Security element and is used to identify the security algorithm used for secure WUR PPDUs. The AP may choose the appropriate algorithm to use based on factors such as STA's capabilities. For example, for very resource limited WUR STAs, AP may choose simple hash functions such as SHA1-<NUM> or SHA-<NUM>, while for WUR STAs with higher processing power, the AP may choose the CCMP-<NUM> Cipher suite. If the AP indicates "Use group cipher suite" for pairwise cipher suite, PTK is not used for WUR PPDUs and only Group Keys are used. Although the use of pairwise cipher suite is recommended for unicast WUR PPDUs, under certain circumstance the AP may also decide to use Group cipher suite for all WUR PPDUs.

<FIG> illustrates a secure WUR frame <NUM> that carries a cryptographically encoded MIC field <NUM> which helps the intended receiver WUR STA to categorically authenticate the transmitter of the frame. In order to differentiate secure WUR frames from unsecure WUR frames, the AP sets the Security bit <NUM> within the Frame Control field <NUM> to <NUM>. The Security bit <NUM> alerts the receiving WUR STA of the presence of the MIC field <NUM> within the WUR frame. As mentioned earlier, due to the comparatively simple signals used for transmissions of WUR PPDUs, it is not very difficult for an attacker to replay an earlier WUR PPDU, or even generate a forged WUR frame with the malicious intention of causing a WUR STA to waste battery power by forcing the STA to wake up unnecessarily. Such attempts may be thwarted if the WUR frame contains some field that can only be generated by a trusted transmitter using a shared secret Key and which can be verified by the intended WUR STA using the same secret Key. Such fields are generally known as Message Authentication Codes (MAC) or Message Integrity Codes (MIC). The AP may use popular cryptographic hash functions that are also commonly used in IEEE <NUM> devices such as SHA-<NUM>-<NUM>, SHA-<NUM>, SHA-<NUM> or MD5 etc. to generate the MIC field <NUM>, or the AP may also choose to generate the MIC field <NUM> using block cipher algorithm such as Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Codes (CBC-MAC) which in turn may be based on Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) such as AES-<NUM>-CMAC or AES-<NUM>-CMAC. The AP's choice of the cryptographic algorithm to use to generate the MIC field <NUM> may be based on factors such as STA's capabilities, for example for very resource limited WUR STAs, AP may choose simple hash functions such as SHA1-<NUM> or SHA-<NUM>, while for WUR STAs with higher processing power, the AP may choose the CCMP-<NUM> which is based on AES. A key assumption in using MAC or MIC to provide security is the fact that an attacker that does not possess the secret Key is not able to generate the same MIC or it is too computationally expensive to reverse engineer the secret key based on the MIC. However, it is still possible for an attacker to sniff a genuine secure WUR PPDU and use it at a future time to launch a replay attack. To prevent such replay attacks, the transmitter must ensure that each MIC computation uses a unique input (or a random number) that is different for each secure WUR PPDU for a particular secret Key. Such unique inputs are generally known as "salt" or "nonce".

Several types of WUR frames are being considered in the IEEE <NUM>. 11ba Taskgroup and even though the format of the frames may be similar, as shown in the generic WUR frame <NUM> in <FIG>, the content of the frame fields may differ slightly depending on frame type. WUR frames that are addressed to a single WUR STA may be known as unicast WUR frame, WUR frames that are addressed to a group of WUR STAs may be known as multicast WUR frames while WUR frames that are addressed to all the WUR STAs associated with an AP may be known as broadcast WUR frames. A unicast WUR frame may contain both the Receiver Address (RA) as well as Transmitter Address (TA) within the Address field <NUM>, and the TD control field <NUM> may contain a timestamp field or a packet number, while the Frame body <NUM> field may be absent. Similarly a broadcast WUR frame such as WUR Beacon, that is purely used for time synchronization (i.e. not used to wake WUR STAs) may only contain a Transmitter Address (TA) within the Address field <NUM>, and the TD control field <NUM> may contain a timestamp field use for time synchronization and the Frame body <NUM> may be absent. A multicast WUR frame on the other hand may contain the Transmitter Address in the Address field <NUM>, a timestamp or packet number in the TD control field, while the Frame body field <NUM> may contain a list of the WUR STAs that are targeted for waking by the multicast frame.

Referring again to <FIG>, if a WUR frame contains a unique number that is different for each WUR frame, for example a Partial-TSF (P-TSF) field <NUM>, this may be used as a salt for the cryptographic function. The P-TSF field may represent some selected bits of the Time Synchronization Function (TSF) maintained by the AP. If the WUR frame is a unicast frame, the AP uses its secret Key, for example the Temporal Key (TK) portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK, the Transmitter Address (TA) and the Receiver Address (RA), as well as the P-TSF field as input to the cryptographic algorithm to obtain a MIC. Usually, the output of a standard cryptographic function may be too long to directly use in WUR PPDUs and may need to be truncated to fit the limited size of the WUR frames. For example, if the AP uses SHA-<NUM> to generate the MIC, the cryptographic process at the AP may be summarized as: <MAT>.

Alternatively, if the AP used the AES-<NUM>-CMAC to generate the MIC, the TK, TA, RA and P-TSF are fed into the AES engine as inputs which will return a <NUM> bit number as the MIC which is then truncated to L bits.

Finally, the AP replaces the Address field <NUM> in <FIG> with the MIC field <NUM>, sets the security bit <NUM> to <NUM> and computes the FCS <NUM> over the entire WUR frame <NUM> and transmits the secure WUR PPDU carrying the WUR frame <NUM>.

As for a receiving WUR STA that receives the WUR frame <NUM>, it first verifies that the frame is error free by checking the FCS field <NUM>. The Security bit <NUM> alerts the STA that the WUR frame <NUM> is a secure frame and its Address field is replaced by the MIC field <NUM> while the Frame Type field <NUM> indicates that the frame is a unicast WUR frame. The STA uses its secret Key, for example the Temporal Key (TK') portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK, the BSSID of its BSS as the Transmitter Address (TA') and the WUR ID (WID) assigned to the STA (e.g. STA's AID12) as the Receiver Address (RA'), as well as the P-TSF field <NUM> as input to the cryptographic algorithm to obtain a MIC. For example, if the AP had indicated in the WUR mode response frame that SHA-<NUM> is to be used as the Cipher suite to use for pairwise communication, the cryptographic process at the STA may be summarized as: <MAT>.

Since both the TA and RA were used as input to the MIC calculation, if the computed MIC' matches the MIC field <NUM>, the WUR STA implicitly identifies itself as being the receiver of the WUR frame and also concludes that the frame is an authentic frame transmitted by its AP. In order to further protect itself from replay attacks, the WUR STA may perform additional checks based on the P-TSF field, for example, the STA may check that the P-TSF value is greater than that of WUR frames received in the past and also that the difference between the P-TSF value in the received WUR frame and the locally maintained P-TSF is within a certain acceptable value from its local P-TSF value, for example less than the maximum expected clock drift. If the P-TSF check fails, the WUR STA discards the frame, otherwise the STA proceeds to take the expected action based on the content of the WUR frame, for example waking up its PCR if the WUR frame <NUM> is a unicast WUR frame. In order to prevent the case where the number of bits allocated to the P-TSF field is low and the P-TSF value may roll over after hitting the maximum and thereby causing genuine WUR frames being falsely classified as replayed WUR frames, the AP has to ensure that the secret key is changed every time the P-TSF value rolls over. As for third party WUR STAs, if any of the inputs to the cryptographic function, for example the secret Key or the RA is different, the MIC' computation will not match the MIC field carried in the WUR frame and the WUR STA can safely discard such frames.

The example above assumed the presence of both the TA and RA in the Address field <NUM> of the WUR frames. However, if the WUR frame to be secured only carries the TA, for example WUR Beacon frames, the MIC is calculated using the Temporal Key (TK) portion of the Group Key GTK or W-GTK, the BSSID of its BSS as the Transmitter Address (TA) as well as the P-TSF field as input to the cryptographic algorithm.

Any WUR STA that possesses the same Group Key would be able to verify the MIC and will be able to correctly receive the broadcast WUR Beacon and synchronize its local P-TSF based on the P-TSF field of the received frame.

Referring to <FIG>, a WUR frame <NUM> is shown that does not carry a unique number that may be used as salt for the cryptographic computation. Even if such frames included a MIC field, the receiver would still be vulnerable to replay attack if the cryptographic computation did not include any unique salt value known to both the transmitter and the recipient. Without a salt value, the cryptographic computation will output the same MIC for a given WUR frame if the content of the frame remains the same. In order to overcome such situation, during the WUR mode negotiation, for each WUR STA that negotiates secure WUR mode with an AP, the AP may provide a base random number to use as the base number to generate the cryptographic salt for WUR frame types that do not carry a unique number that may be used as salt for the cryptographic computation. The WUR Action frame <NUM> in <FIG> may be used for the purpose by the AP. In this variant of the WUR Action frame, the indication of whether the Action frame is a request frame from WUR STAs or a response frame from the AP may be carried within the WUR Action field. When the WUR Action frame is used to carry the cryptographic salt, the WUR Action field is set as WUR Mode response. Although not shown, the WUR Security element <NUM> may also be present. In addition, the AP also includes the Crypto Salt element <NUM> to provide the base number to use for the cryptographic salt. Since it is possible that more than one WUR frame types may require separate cryptographic salts, the AP may include one or more Crypto Salt Parameters field <NUM> within the Crypto Salt element <NUM>. Each Crypto Salt Parameters field <NUM> is comprised of a Frame Type field <NUM> that specifies the WUR frame type to which this cryptographic salt is to be applied and the Crypto Salt Base field <NUM> that specifies the starting number to use as the salt for the indicated WUR frame type. The encoding of the WUR Frame Type field <NUM> is the same as the Frame Type field <NUM> in <FIG>. For unicast or multicast WUR frame types that require such cryptographic salt, the AP maintains one unique number per frame type per WUR STA or per multicast Group that has negotiated secure WUR transmission. Each WUR STA that has negotiated secure WUR transmission also maintains one unique number per frame type for unicast as well as one unique number per frame type for each multicast group that it belongs to. By default, the Crypto Salt Base may be set to zero during initialization or the AP may also choose a different random value as the starting number. After each successful transmission of a secure WUR frame, the AP increments the value of the cryptographic salt associated with that WUR frame by one. Similarly, a WUR STA that successfully receives such secure WUR frame also increments the value of the cryptographic salt associated with that WUR frame by one. If r_STA represents the current value of the cryptographic salt maintained by the AP for a particular frame type for a WUR STA, the AP uses its secret Key, for example the Temporal Key (TK) portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK, the BSSID and the Receiver Address (RA), as well as the r_STA as input to the cryptographic algorithm to obtain a MIC. For example, if the AP uses SHA-<NUM> to generate the MIC, the cryptographic process at the AP may be summarized as: <MAT> L = number of bits of the Address field <NUM> less the number of bits of the RA field <NUM>.

The AP replaces the TA portion of the Address field <NUM> in <FIG> with the MIC field <NUM>, sets the security bit in the Frame Control <NUM> to <NUM> and computes the FCS <NUM> over the entire WUR frame <NUM> and transmits the secure WUR frame <NUM>.

At a receiving WUR STA, it first compares the RA field <NUM> with its own WUR ID and if there is a match, it proceeds to compare the MIC field <NUM>. If r_STA' represents the current value of the cryptographic salt maintained by the STA for the particular frame type, it uses its secret Key, for example the Temporal Key (TK') portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK, the BSSID of its BSS and the WUR ID (WID) assigned to the STA (e.g. STA's AID12) as the Receiver Address (RA'), as well as r_STA' as input to the cryptographic algorithm to obtain a MIC'. For example, if the AP had indicated in the WUR Mode Response frame that SHA-<NUM> is to be used as the Cipher suite to use for pairwise communication, the cryptographic process at the STA may be summarized as: <MAT>.

If the computed MIC' matches the MIC field <NUM>, the WUR STA implicitly identifies itself as being the receiver of the WUR frame and also concludes that the frame is an authentic frame transmitted by its AP. At the same time, the STA increments the cryptographic salt maintained by the STA for the particular frame type by one and proceeds to wake its PCR. Upon receiving a response frame from the WUR STA, the AP also increments the cryptographic salt maintained by the AP for the particular frame type for the WUR STA by one. In this case, since the cryptographic salt value is always incremented by both the AT and STA following each successful WUR transmission, any replayed WUR PPDU will fail to pass the MIC check and hence the replay attack is thwarted.

In order to recover from the case where the AP and STA may lose synchronization and have different values of the cryptographic salt, few options could be employed:.

As a slight variation, the MIC' value may also be pre-computed by the WUR STA using the latest value of the cryptographic salt while the STA is in the PCR mode and saved to a common memory accessible to both PCR and WUR. When the STA receives a secure WUR frame, it simply compares the MIC field in the received frame with the saved MIC' in the memory to determine the authenticity of the received WUR frame. This option may be preferable when a more computationally intensive cipher suite is selected by the AP since a WUR STA may have access to a more powerful CPU during the PCR mode as compared to the WUR mode, thereby leading to some power savings.

As mentioned earlier, due to the relatively low data rates expected to be available for transmissions of WUR PPDU, it is beneficial to keep the length of the WUR frame as short as possible. Replacing either the TA field or both the TA and RA fields with the MIC has an added advantage of minimizing the increase in the length of the secure WUR frames. In addition, since the length of the input fields for the cryptographic computation is not a big concern, instead of using the abbreviated address fields such as <NUM> bits of AID12 for RA, or <NUM> bits of BSS color (network identifier) as TA, the <NUM> bits long full MAC addresses may be used as RA and TA for the MIC computation. This further reduces the chances of unintended false positives for the MIC, for example due to a neighbouring OBSS using the same BSS color. As an example, assuming the address field <NUM> in <FIG> is <NUM> bits long, if the addressed field is replaced by the MIC field <NUM> as shown in <FIG>, the length of the secure WUR frame remains the same as unsecure WUR frame.

Referring to <FIG>, an alternate solution is presented for WUR frames that do not carry a unique number that may be used as salt for the cryptographic computation. During the WUR mode negotiation, for each WUR STA that negotiates secure WUR mode with an AP, for each unicast or multicast WUR frame types that require such cryptographic salt, the AP maintains one unique number per frame type per WUR STA or per multicast Group as a base number to generate the cryptographic salt for the frame type. By default, the base number may be set to zero during initialization or the AP may also choose a different random value as the starting number. Using the current value of the base number as the cryptographic salt, the AP computes a MIC for each WUR STA before the STA goes to WUR mode and transmit the MIC to the WUR STA using PCR. If r_STA represents the current value of the base number maintained by the AP for a particular frame type for a WUR STA, the AP uses its secret Key, for example the Temporal Key (TK) portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK, the BSSID and the Receiver Address (RA), as well as the r_STA as input to the cryptographic algorithm to obtain a MIC. For example, if the AP uses HMAC-MD5 to generate the MIC, the cryptographic process at the AP may be summarized as: <MAT>.

The WUR Action frame <NUM> in <FIG> with the mode indication set to WUR Mode Response may be used by the AP to transmit the MIC to a WUR STA. The AP may include one or more MIC Parameters field <NUM> within the MIC element <NUM>. Each MIC Parameters field <NUM> is comprised of a Frame Type field <NUM> that specifies the frame type to which this MIC is to be applied and the MIC field <NUM> that carries the MIC to be used to verify the indicated WUR frame type. The length of the MIC field <NUM> depends on the Cipher suite used to compute the MIC. The encoding of the WUR Frame Type field <NUM> is the same as the Frame Type field <NUM> in <FIG>. Each WUR STA that has negotiated secure WUR transmission receives and saves one unique MIC per frame type for unicast as well as one unique MIC per frame type for each multicast group that it belongs to. Subsequently when the AP needs to transmit a secure WUR frame that require a separate cryptographic salt to a WUR STA that is in WUR mode, it transmits the WUR frame <NUM> that replaces the Address field <NUM> in <FIG> with r_STA <NUM>, the current value of the base number maintained for the WUR STA. The number of bits used for the base number is as such limited by the number of bits allocated for the Address field <NUM> in <FIG>.

At a receiving WUR STA, it uses its secret Key, for example the Temporal Key (TK') portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK, the BSSID of its BSS and the WUR ID (WID) assigned STA (e.g. STA's AID12) as the Receiver Address (RA'), as well as the r_STA received in the WUR frame <NUM> as input to the cryptographic algorithm to obtain a MIC'. For example, if the AP had indicated during the initial WUR mode negotiation that HMAC-MD5 is to be used as the Cipher suite to use for pairwise communication, the cryptographic process at the STA may be summarized as: <MAT>.

If the computed MIC' matches the saved MIC for the frame type, the WUR STA implicitly identifies itself as being the receiver of the WUR frame and also concludes that the frame is an authentic frame transmitted by its AP. After each successful transmission of a secure WUR frame, the AP increments the value of the base number associated with that WUR frame by one, re-computes the MIC using the base number and provides the MIC to the WUR STA during a PCR session before the STA goes back to WUR mode. One advantage of using this method is that there is no need to truncate the MIC and the full length MIC is used to verify the authenticity of WUR frames, however there is an extra transmission of the MIC during each PCR session. This method may be suitable when the WUR frames are transmitted infrequently but a higher level of security is expected.

Referring to <FIG>, yet another alternate solution is presented for WUR frames that do not carry a unique number that may be used as salt for the cryptographic computation. Instead of explicitly providing a random number to use as a cryptographic salt, the WUR STAs may also implicitly receive the number to use as cryptographic salt from the frames exchanged during the PCR session. For unicast WUR frames, the Sequence Number carried within the Sequence Control field of the MAC header of the most recent unicast Data frame or unicast Management frame from the AP that was successfully received by the WUR STA may be used as the cryptographic salt. For example, if SN represents the current value of the Sequence Number of the most recently transmitted Data frame <NUM>, the AP uses its secret Key, for example the Temporal Key (TK) portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK, the BSSID and the Receiver Address (RA), as well as the SN as input to the cryptographic algorithm to obtain a MIC. For example, if the AP uses SHA-<NUM> to generate the MIC, the cryptographic process at the AP may be summarized as: <MAT> L = number of bits of the Address field <NUM>.

The AP replaces the Address field of the unicast WUR PPDU <NUM> with the generated MIC, sets the security bit to <NUM> and computes the FCS over the entire WUR frame carried within the WUR PPDU and transmits the secure unicast WUR PPDU <NUM>.

At a receiving WUR STA, it uses its secret Key, for example the Temporal Key (TK') portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK, the BSSID of its BSS and the WUR ID (WID) assigned to the STA (e.g. STA's AID12) as the Receiver Address (RA'), as well as the sequence number SN' of the most recently received Data frame <NUM> as input to the cryptographic algorithm to obtain a MIC'. For example, if the AP had indicated during the initial WUR mode negotiation that SHA-<NUM> is to be used as the Cipher suite to use for pairwise communication, the cryptographic process at the STA may be summarized as: <MAT>.

If the computed MIC' matches MIC field of the WUR PPDU <NUM>, the WUR STA implicitly identifies itself as being the receiver of the WUR frame and also concludes that the frame is an authentic frame transmitted by its AP and proceeds to wake its PCR.

As for multicast WUR PPDUs, since more than one WUR STA is required to be able to authenticate the WUR PPDU, the implicit cryptographic salt must be the same for all the STAs that are the intended recipients of the multicast WUR PPDU. The Timestamp field carried within the most recent <NUM> Beacon frame may be used as the implicit cryptographic salt for multicast WUR PPDUs. For example, if TSF represents the current value of the Timestamp field of the most recently transmitted Beacon frame <NUM>, the AP uses its secret Group Key negotiated for the multicast group, for example the Temporal Key (TK) portion of the Group Key GTK, IGTK or W-GTK, the BSSID and Group ID (GID) of the recipient multicast group, as well as the TSF as input to the cryptographic algorithm to obtain a MIC. For example, if the AP uses AES-<NUM>-CMAC to generate the MIC, the cryptographic process at the AP may be summarized as: <MAT>.

Here, AES-<NUM>-CMAC (TK ∥ BSSID ∥ GID ∥ TSF) is used to represent the output of the AES-<NUM>-CMAC algorithm that takes TK, BSSID, GID and TSF as inputs.

The AP replaces the Address field of the multicast WUR PPDU <NUM> with the generated MIC, sets the security bit to <NUM> and computes the FCS over the entire WUR frame carried within the WUR PPDU and transmits the secure multicast WUR PPDU <NUM>.

At a receiving WUR STA, every time it receives a Beacon frame from its AP, it saves the timestamp field carried in the most recently received Beacon frame <NUM> in memory as TSF. Subsequently when the STA receives a secure WUR frame and if the Frame Type of the received WUR frame indicates multicast frame, and if the STA belongs to a multicast group, it uses its Group Key GTK, IGTK or W-GTK, the BSSID of its BSS and the Group ID (GID') of the multicast group that the STA belongs to as well as the saved timestamp TSF' as input to the cryptographic algorithm to obtain a MIC'. For example, if the AP had indicated during the initial WUR mode negotiation that AES-<NUM>-CMAC is to be used as the Cipher suite to use for pairwise communication, the cryptographic process at the STA may be summarized as: <MAT>.

If the computed MIC' matches the MIC field of the WUR PPDU <NUM>, the WUR STA implicitly identifies itself as being the receiver of the multicast WUR frame and also concludes that the frame is an authentic frame transmitted by its AP and proceeds to wake its PCR.

It may be possible that a WUR STA is operating in the WUR mode for a very long stretches of time and only needs to be woken up very infrequently. In such cases, it is possible that the WUR STA does not switch to PCR mode very often. However such WUR STAs would still be receiving WUR Beacon frames regularly in order to maintain time synchronization with the AP. For such WUR STAs, the AP may instead use the P-TSF carried within the most recent WUR Beacon frame that the WUR STA is known to have received as the cryptographic salt for the next secure WUR frame that is address to the STA. For example, an AP may be aware of the WUR Beacon frames that a WUR STA listens to, based on the information such as the WUR STA's duty cycle. An example is shown in the frame exchange sequence <NUM>. If the AP is aware that the WUR STA will listen to the WUR Beacon <NUM>, and if P-TSF represents the value of the P-TSF field of the WUR Beacon frame <NUM>, the AP saves the P-TSF value in memory. Subsequently when the AP needs to wake the STA, the AP uses its secret Key, for example the Temporal Key (TK) portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK, the BSSID and the Receiver Address (RA) of the recipient WUR STA, as well as the saved P-TSF as input to the cryptographic algorithm to obtain a MIC. For example, if the AP uses AES-<NUM>-CMAC to generate the MIC, the cryptographic process at the AP may be summarized as: <MAT>.

The AP replaces the Address field of the WUR PPDU <NUM> with the generated MIC, sets the security bit to <NUM> and computes the FCS over the entire WUR frame carried within the WUR PPDU and transmits the secure multicast WUR PPDU <NUM>.

At a receiving WUR STA, every time it receives a WUR Beacon frame from its AP, for example the WUR Beacon <NUM>, it saves the P-TSF field carried in the WUR Beacon in memory as P-TSF'. Subsequently when the STA receives a secure WUR frame, it uses its secret Key, the BSSID of its BSS and its WID as RA as well as the saved P-TSF' as input to the cryptographic algorithm to obtain a MIC'. For example, if the AP had indicated during the initial WUR mode negotiation that AES-<NUM>-CMAC is to be used as the Cipher suite to use for pairwise communication, the cryptographic process at the STA may be summarized as: <MAT>.

If the computed MIC' matches MIC field of the secure WUR frame carried by the WUR PPDU <NUM>, the WUR STA implicitly identifies itself as being the receiver of the WUR frame and also concludes that the frame is an authentic frame transmitted by its AP and proceeds to wake its PCR.

If the WUR Beacon frames also carry a monotonically increasing WUR Beacon Number, instead of using P-TSF as the cryptographic salt, the WUR Beacon Number may also be used by the AP and WUR STAs as the cryptographic salt for the MIC computation.

In the event that some of the WUR STAs have very low duty cycle, or have duty cycles that do not coincide with other WUR STAs, it will be difficult to ensure that such WUR STAs have received the TSF or P-TSF of the most recent PCR Beacon frame or the most recent WUR Beacon frame respectively. In such cases, the AP and WUR STAs may keep track of the sequence number of the Target WUR Beacon Transmit Time (TWBTT) for each WUR STA. Since the WUR Beacon Interval, the periodic interval at which the AP transmits WUR Beacons, is known to all WUR STAs, even without receiving a WUR Beacon a WUR STA is still able to keep track of the sequence number of the most recent TWBTT. This sequence number may then be used as the cryptographic salt for the MIC computation.

Even though cryptographic functions such as HMAC or CMAC are widely used in wireless communication systems and are considered much simpler than many other cryptographic functions, in certain very resource constrained deployments, even a hash computation may take up significant resource for a WUR STA when it is operating in WUR mode. In such cases, the AP may have to relax the definition of secure WUR frame and rely on common knowledge of some secret information that is known to both the AP and the WUR STA to protect the WUR frames. As an example, during each PCR session, the AP provides a randomly generated secret number r_STA to the WUR STA within an encrypted WUR Action frame <NUM> which may be similar to the frame <NUM> in <FIG> except that the MIC element carries the random number r_STA instead of a MIC. The WUR STA saves the random number in memory as r_STA'. Subsequently, when the AP needs to wake the WUR STA, the AP replaces the Address field of the WUR PPDU <NUM> with the generated MIC, sets the security bit to <NUM> and computes the FCS over the entire WUR frame carried within the WUR PPDU and transmits the secure WUR PPDU <NUM>. A receiving WUR STA compares the Address field <NUM> with the saved r_STA' and if there is a match the WUR STA implicitly identifies itself as being the receiver of the WUR frame and also concludes that the frame is an authentic frame transmitted by its AP. The WUR STA also checks against replay attacks by checking that the random number carried in the Address field <NUM> has never been used in the past and if true proceeds to wake its PCR. The AP again provides a new random number that has never been used before, to the STA using encrypted WUR Action frame to be used for the next secure WUR frame and so on.

In the first embodiment, it was mentioned that for each WUR STA that negotiates secure WUR mode with an AP, the AP may provide a random number to use as the base number to generate the cryptographic salt for WUR frame types that do not carry a unique number that may be used as salt for the cryptographic computation. Both AP and WUR STA implicitly generate the cryptographic salts to be used for next WUR frames by incrementing their respective base number. As an alternative, in order to reduce the risk of lack of synchronization of the cryptographic salts between the AP and WUR STAs, the AP provides the WUR STA a range of numbers to use as the cryptographic salt. Using a WUR Action frame <NUM>, the AP may provide the Crypto Salt Base <NUM> as well as a Crypto Salt Range Exponent <NUM> to use for a particular WUR frame type as indicated by the Frame Type field <NUM>. As an example, if S_SN represents the value of the Crypto Salt Base <NUM> and NUM_SN represents the value of the Crypto Salt Range Exponent <NUM>, the AP may indicate numbers in the range [S_SN, S_SN + <NUM>NUM_SN - <NUM>]. Upon receiving the cryptographic salt range, using the specified cryptographic algorithm, the WUR STA may use its secret pairwise Key, the BSSID of its BSS and its WID as RA as inputs to pre-compute the MIC values for each cryptographic salt in the range and save the MIC values in memory for future use during WUR mode. Table <NUM> in <FIG> shows an example table of MIC values computed by a WUR STA with S_SN = <NUM> and NUM_SN = <NUM>. Here the MIC values have been truncated to <NUM> bits. When the AP needs to wake a WUR STA, the AP uses its secret pairwise Key, for example the Temporal Key (TK) portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK, the BSSID and the Receiver Address (RA) of the recipient WUR STA, and starts with the first CSN in the series as the cryptographic salt as input to the cryptographic algorithm to compute a MIC. The AP replaces the TA field of the secure WUR frame <NUM> in <FIG> with the generated MIC <NUM>, sets the security bit to <NUM> and computes the FCS over the entire WUR frame <NUM> and transmits the secure WUR PPDU carrying the WUR frame <NUM>.

Subsequently when a WUR STA receives the secure WUR frame <NUM>, it first compares the RA field <NUM> with its own WUR ID and if there is a match, it proceeds to compare the WUR frame type and if a MIC table for the frame type exists in its memory, the STA compares the MIC field <NUM> with the stored MIC values in ascending order, starting from the last used MIC value and if there is a match the WUR STA implicitly identifies itself as being the receiver of the WUR frame and also concludes that the frame is an authentic frame transmitted by its AP and proceeds to wake its PCR. Once the AP uses up all the cryptographic salt in the specified range, it provides a new range of cryptographic salt to the WUR STA for the use to verify subsequent secure WUR frames.

The process for secure multicast WUR frames is very similar. The AP provides a separate range of cryptographic salt to WUR STAs to verify secure multicast WUR frames. Upon receiving the cryptographic salt range, using the specified cryptographic algorithm, the WUR STA may use its secret Group Key, the BSSID of its BSS and the Group ID of the multicast group that it belongs to as RA as inputs to pre-compute the MIC values for each cryptographic salt in the range and save the MIC values in memory for future use during WUR mode. When the AP needs to wake a group of WUR STAs, the AP uses its Group Key, for example the Temporal Key (TK) portion of the Group Key GTK, IGTK or W-GTK, the BSSID and the Group ID of the recipient multicast group, and starts with the first CSN in the series as the cryptographic salt as input to the cryptographic algorithm to compute a MIC. The AP replaces the TA field of the secure multicast WUR frame <NUM> in <FIG> with the generated MIC <NUM>, sets the security bit to <NUM> and computes the FCS over the entire WUR frame <NUM> and transmits the secure WUR PPDU carrying the multicast WUR frame <NUM>.

Each WUR STA that receives the secure multicast WUR frame <NUM> compares the WUR frame type and if a MIC table for the frame type exists in its memory, the STA compares the MIC field <NUM> with the stored MIC values in ascending order, starting from the last used MIC value and if there is a match the WUR STA implicitly identifies itself as being one of the receiver of the multicast WUR frame <NUM> and also concludes that the frame is an authentic frame transmitted by its AP and proceeds to wake its PCR. Once the AP uses up all the cryptographic salt in the specified range, it provides a new range of cryptographic salts to the group of WUR STAs to use to verify subsequent secure multicast WUR frames.

A recent IEEE <NUM>. 11ba proposal, IEEE <NUM>-<NUM>/1004r01 proposes a similar idea of creating a secure WUR frame by adding a Message Integrity Check (MIC) field to a WUR frame. The BSSID field which is generally used as an AP's transmitter address (TA) as well as the Timing Synchronization Function (TSF) maintained by the AP and STAs are used as an input for the MIC computation. The MIC is computed over the whole WUR frame using secret group key (e.g. IGTK) and the FCS field is replaced with the computed MIC field. Any error in the WUR frame during transmission will result in the MIC verification failing at the receiver, thereby performing the function of the FCS field. However, the proposal suffers from some drawbacks as explained below:.

<FIG> shows the format of a TSF <NUM> that is maintained by all IEEE <NUM> devices operating in infrastructure mode. The TSF <NUM> is a <NUM>-bits long counter with a time resolution of <NUM> microsecond and helps all the <NUM> devices in a BSS maintain time synchronization with the AP. An AP periodically broadcasts the current value of its TSF using the Timestamp field of the Beacon frames. Each STA that receives the Beacon frames from the AP that the STA is associated with, replaces its local TSF with the received timestamp after adjusting for the receiver processing delays. For easy referencing, starting from bit <NUM>, the TSF <NUM> may be divided into eight octets from TSF-<NUM> to TSF-<NUM> as shown in <FIG>.

<FIG> shows the frame format of a secure WUR frame <NUM> as per the sixth embodiment. The Mac header <NUM> of the WUR frame <NUM> comprises a Frame control field <NUM>, a Receiver Address (RA) field <NUM> and a Partial TSF (P-TSF) field <NUM>. The frame control field follows the same format as the Frame control field <NUM> in <FIG>. In order to differentiate secure WUR frames from unsecure WUR frames, the AP sets the Security bit within the Frame Control field <NUM> to <NUM>. The Security bit alerts the receiving WUR STA of the presence of a MIC field within the WUR frame. The RA field <NUM> may be set to a receiving WUR STA's assigned WUR ID (WID), for example its AID12. The P-TSF field <NUM> is used for time synchronization during the WUR mode and the AP may choose to transmit the TSF-<NUM> octet of the TSF <NUM> in <FIG> as the P-TSF. The Frame body field <NUM> is optional and may only be present in certain frame types. In order to create a secure WUR frame, the AP computes a MIC over the entire WUR frame using a pre negotiated cryptographic function and with the TSF as the cryptographic salt. The AP's TA (BSSID) is also used as additional input for the MIC computation. The FCS field of the frame is replaced by the computed MIC field <NUM> which serves as an authentication tag and at the same time also serves to detect any error in the WUR frame.

Using the local TSF directly for the MIC computation however is not feasible due to the synchronization loss issue as explained below. Using TSF-<NUM> octet of the TSF <NUM> in <FIG> as the P-TSF will give a partial timestamp with a resolution of <NUM> and a roll over period of <NUM>. The choice of the bits of TSF to be used as P-TSF may depend on the WUR deployment scenario and may have been negotiated between the AP and a WUR STA during the initial WUR negotiation phase. If the TSF-<NUM> octet is used as the P-TSF, the TSF-<NUM> fields of the AP and STA cannot be expected to be in synchronization. As such, the TSF bits smaller than the P-TSF should not be used in the MIC computation. In addition, a WUR STA running in WUR mode may not receive the <NUM> Beacon frames very regularly and as such the local TSF maintained by the WUR STA may not be so tightly synchronized with the AP's TSF. Even though the WUR STA uses the partial timestamp carried in the P-TSF fields in broadcast WUR frames such as WUR Beacons to keep the corresponding bits of its local TSF in synchronization, due to the limited number of bits available for the P-TSF field, the partial timestamp will roll over on a regular basis and the higher octets of the TSF will need to be incremented. Due to hardware limitation, both the AP's as well as the WUR STA's clocks are expected to have some clock drift which is expressed as ±ppm (parts per million). Typically, a WUR STA may be implemented using much cheaper hardware components as compared to the AP and are expected to experience a much larger clock drift. Table <NUM> in <FIG> illustrates an example of the timing synchronization issue that may occur due to the clock drift error when the AP chooses to transmit the TSF-<NUM> octet of the TSF <NUM> in <FIG> as the P-TSF. The example assumes a total clock drift of ±<NUM> ppm between as AP and a WUR STA, i.e. the AP's and the WUR STA's clock differs by <NUM> units for every million units. The top half of table <NUM> shows the case where the STA's clock is running faster than the AP' clock, while the bottom half shows the opposite case. For sake of brevity, only the TSF-<NUM> octet (<NUM>:<NUM> bits) and the TSF-<NUM> octets (<NUM>:<NUM> bits) of the TSF are shown. Assuming that the WUR Beacons are transmitted once every <NUM> seconds, at the end of a <NUM> seconds period since the last WUR Beacon was received, the WUR STA's clock would have drifted forward almost <NUM> during this time and its TSF-<NUM>:TSF-<NUM> may roll over to <NUM>:<NUM> while the AP's TSF-<NUM>:TSF-<NUM> is still at <NUM>:<NUM> as shown in row <NUM>. The AP's and WUR STA's TSF-<NUM> re-synchronizes to <NUM> only after seven more units at row <NUM>. Similarly, in the reverse case the WUR STA's clock would have drifted behind almost <NUM> during one WUR Beacon interval and its TSF-<NUM>:TSF-<NUM> may still be at <NUM>:<NUM> while the AP's TSF-<NUM>:TSF-<NUM> has already roll over to <NUM>:201as shown in row <NUM>. The AP's and WUR STA's TSF-<NUM> re-synchronizes to <NUM> only after seven more units at row <NUM>. This shows that if the WUR STA missed one WUR Beacon, there is a "TSF misalignment window" of almost <NUM> during which the AP's and STA's TSF are misaligned. If the STA missed more WUR Beacons, the "TSF misalignment window" will only grow bigger. In general, n, the maximum number of WUR Beacons that may be skipped and still allows a WUR STA to recover the TSF synchronization is determined by: <MAT>.

The roll over period is determined by the number of bits used for the P-TSF field and its resolution and is calculated as <NUM><NUM>*r, where l is the number of bits used for the P-TSF and r is the resolution of P-TSF. Since a WUR STA would need to use the exact same value of TSF as used by the AP in order to correctly verify the MIC, both the AP and WUR STAs need to pre-process the respective local TSF to factor in the impact of the clock drift before using the TSF as an input for the MIC computation. In general, the following step can be taken to rectify the TSF misalignment during the "TSF misalignment window":.

Similarly, if the P-TSF in the received WUR frame is lesser than the STA's corresponding TSF bits by (roll over period)/<NUM> units or more, the STA can assume that the STA's clock is slower and a roll over has occurred at the AP and can adjust its higher TSF octets by incrementing by one. For our example, using TSF-<NUM> octet of the TSF <NUM> in <FIG> as the P-TSF, the roll over period can be calculated as <NUM><NUM>*<NUM> = <NUM>. Hence, the maximum number of WUR beacons that may be missed may be computed to be <NUM> which translate to a maximum "TSF misalignment window" of <NUM> = <NUM> units at P-TSF resolution of <NUM>. The following step can be taken to rectify the TSF misalignment during the "TSF misalignment window":.

Referring to <FIG>, the above mentioned pre-processing of TSF is illustrated schematically. <NUM> represents the local TSF maintained by an AP (TSF) or a WUR STA (TSF'). <NUM> represents the copy of the local TSF (TSF*) after going through the pre-processing. When TSF-<NUM> is used as the P-TSF field by the AP, at the AP, the TSF-<NUM> bits are masked to all zeroes to form TSF* and the TSF-<NUM> octet is copied to the P-TSF field <NUM> in <FIG>. TSF* is then used as the cryptographic salt for the MIC computation and the FCS field of the WUR frame <NUM> is replaced with the computed MIC <NUM>. At the receiving WUR STA, a copy TSF* is made of the local TSF' and the TSF-<NUM> octet <NUM> is masked to all zeroes. Next the TSF-<NUM> octet <NUM> is replaced by the P-TSF field <NUM>.

If the WUR frame <NUM> in <FIG> is a unicast frame, the AP uses its secret Key, for example the Temporal Key (TK) portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK, the BSSID as well as the pre-processed TSF* as input to the cryptographic algorithm to compute the MIC over the entire WUR frame except the FCS field (i.e. the MAC header <NUM> as well as the optional Frame Body <NUM> if it exists). Usually, the output of a standard cryptographic function may be too long to directly use in WUR PPDUs and may need to be truncated to fit the limited size of the WUR frames.

For example, if the AP uses a cryptographic hash function SHA-<NUM> to generate the MIC, the cryptographic process at the AP may be summarized as: <MAT>.

The AP replaces the FCS field of the WUR frame <NUM> with the generated MIC <NUM>, and transmits the secure WUR frame <NUM>.

At a receiving WUR STA, when it receives the secure WUR frame <NUM> and after determining it to be a unicast WUR frame, confirms that the RA field <NUM> matches the STA's WID. If the RA matches, the STA uses its secret key, for example the Temporal Key (TK') portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK, its BSSID' as well as the pre-processed TSF* as input to the cryptographic algorithm over the entire WUR frame except the FCS field (i.e. the MAC header <NUM> as well as the optional Frame Body <NUM> if it exists) to obtain a MIC'. For example, if the AP had indicated during the initial WUR mode negotiation that SHA-<NUM> is to be used as the Cipher suite to use for pairwise communication, the cryptographic process at the STA may be summarized as: <MAT>.

If the computed MIC' matches MIC field of the secure WUR frame carried by the WUR frame <NUM>, the WUR STA implicitly identifies itself as being the receiver of the WUR frame and also concludes that the frame is an authentic frame transmitted by its AP and proceeds to wake its PCR.

Referring to <FIG>, an alternate method <NUM> of generating a secure WUR frame by reusing the <NUM> CCMP cryptographic encapsulation is illustrated. Even though a simple cryptographic hash function could be used to produce a MIC for authentication of WUR frames, the AP may also choose to reuse the IEEE <NUM> CCMP cryptographic encapsulation used to encrypt PCR transmission to generate the MIC field <NUM>. Although the IEEE <NUM> CCMP cryptographic encapsulation is used during PCR to encrypt Data frames and Management frames, it also generates a MIC to authenticate the contents of the MAC headers. Even though WUR frames do not need to be encrypted, the IEEE <NUM> CCMP cryptographic encapsulation process can be reused to generate the MIC used for authenticating WUR frames. The AP can specify that CCMP is to be used to generate the MIC during the WUR mode negotiation by specifying in the WUR Security element <NUM> in <FIG> that CCMP-<NUM> in table <NUM> in <FIG> is to be used as the cipher suite. A secure WUR frame is generated using CCMP using following steps:.

The procedure of authenticating a secure WUR frame at the receiving WUR STA using the CCMP cryptographic function is illustrated in <FIG>. A WUR STA authenticates a secure WUR frame using following steps:.

Referring to <FIG>, one option for a secure multicast frame <NUM> is illustrated. As mentioned earlier, multicast WUR frames are addressed to a group of WUR STAs and as such Group Key that is known to all the STAs of the multicast group has to be used to create secure multicast frames. Usually in one infrastructure BSS, only one GTK and one IGTK is generated at a time, and all the STAs in the BSS that has negotiated secure transmission with the AP would have received the Group Keys from the AP. However, use of Group Key leads to vulnerability to "Insider attack" i.e. attack by another device that is also associated with the same AP since it knows the IGTK/GTK. Since the "inside attacker" knows the GTK/IGTK, it can easily create forged secure WUR PPDUs with valid MIC. In order to lessen the risk of the so called "Insider attack", every time a new multicast group is formed, the AP derives a new set of Group Key (either GTK or IGTK) that is associated with that particular multicast group, and with the Group ID assigned to the multicast group. The WUR Security element <NUM> may be used to transfer the Group Key to each member of the multicast group. The Group ID field <NUM> in this case is set as the Group ID assigned to the multicast group and the encrypted Group Key is carried within the Wrapped Key field <NUM>. The AP creates the secure multicast WUR frame <NUM> in the same way that it creates a secure unicast WUR frame, except that the RA field <NUM> is set to the Group ID of the multicast Group and the MIC field <NUM> is computed using the Group Key assigned to the particular multicast Group instead of using the common Group Key used for broadcast frames. At the receiving WUR STAs, if the RA field <NUM> of a secure multicast WUR frame matches the Group ID of a multicast group that the STA belongs, the STA uses the Group key associated with the multicast group to compare the MIC and authenticate the multicast WUR frame. Only if the MIC verification passes, the multicast WUR frame is processed and the STA may proceed to wake its PCR. Using different Group Keys for different multicast groups limit the scope of an "insider attack" to a particular multicast group since an attacker that belong to one multicast group does not possess the Group Key for another multicast group and hence would be unable to launch an "inside attack".

Referring to <FIG>, an alternate option for a secure multicast frame <NUM> is illustrated. This option is applicable if the multicast groups are not assigned a Group ID but rather the targeted recipients of a multicast WUR frame are identified by including a Paged list of the RAs of the group member STAs, or if the multicast frame is only addressed to few STAs of a multicast group. The RA field of the multicast frame may be set to the multicast Group ID, if assigned; else it may be set as the RA of one of the member STA of the multicast Group. The WUR frame in this case carries a frame body and this is indicated using a non-zero value in the Length field <NUM> in <FIG>. The frame body carries the list of the RAs of the rest of the multicast STAs addressed by the frame. For such multicast frame format, a two-tier authentication may be used to create a secure multicast WUR frame at the AP using:.

At a receiving WUR STA, if the STA belongs to a multicast group, a MIC' is computed using the Group Key over the entire WUR frame <NUM>, except for the FCS field, similar to the procedures described earlier. If the computed MIC' matches the MIC field <NUM>, the STA creates a hash value of its WID by using the Temporal Key (TK') portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK negotiated between the AP and the STA. For example, if RA1 represent the WID of the STA, TSF* represents the processed TSF as explained earlier, and assuming SHA-<NUM> is used as the hash function, a hashed RA may be created at the STA as: <MAT> L = number of bits of the address field <NUM> in <FIG>.

The STA next compares each RA field in the multicast WUR frame <NUM> with the hashed RA and if there is a match, the WUR STA implicitly identifies itself as being one of the receiver of the multicast WUR frame and proceeds to further process the frame, for example to wake its PCR.

Referring to <FIG>, the frame format of an unsecure WUR frame <NUM> is illustrated. Although, similar in structure to a secure WUR frame, an unsecure WUR frame need not carry the P-TSF in the TD Control field <NUM>. Also, the FCS field is used to carry the Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) <NUM> which is computed over the whole WUR frame in order to detect errors during transmission. Since the WUR frame is comparatively short, <NUM> to <NUM> bits of CRC should suffice and as such the FCS field for an unsecure WUR frame can be shorter than the FCS field in a secure WUR frame that carries a MIC. For example, assuming a <NUM> bits P-TSF field, a <NUM> bits long CRC field and a <NUM> bits long MIC, an unsecure WUR frame can be shorter than a secure WUR frame by <NUM> bits. In closed door application where security is not a big concern, having different sizes for secure and unsecure WUR frame may help WUR STAs save more power due to the shorter lengths of unsecure WUR frames.

Instead of using a timestamp as a replay protection, it is also possible to use a monotonically increasing sequence number or a packet number to achieve replay protection. <FIG> shows a <NUM> bit long Packet Number (PN) that may be used to provide replay protection for WUR PPDUs. For the ease of referencing, the PN may be divided into <NUM> octets and referred to as PN-<NUM>, PN-<NUM>, PN-<NUM>, PN-<NUM>, PN-<NUM> and PN-<NUM>, with PN-<NUM> being the lowest octet and PN-<NUM> being the highest octet. With <NUM> bits, the PN is enough to provide a unique number to the WUR PPDUs without having to worry about roll over of the PN number space. The AP maintains a unique PN for every secret Key that it negotiates for transmission of secure WUR PPDUs and makes sure that for a given secret Key, the PN is never repeated during the transmission of WUR PPDUs. If separate secret Keys are negotiated exclusively for use with WUR PPDUs, the PNs maintained for WUR PPDUs are different from the ones used during PCR. Since the WUR PPDU has limited number of bits available to carry the packet number, only a portion of the PN is carried by the WUR PPDUs, while the remaining bits of the PN is maintained locally. The portion of the PN that is carried by the WUR PPDUs may be referred to as Partial PN (P-PN). For example, only the PN-<NUM> octet may be carried in the WUR PPDUs while the rest of the PN octets are not transmitted. Each WUR STA that has negotiated secure WUR PPDUs maintains a local PN and every time a valid secure WUR PPDU is received, the WUR STA replaces the corresponding bits of the PN with the P-PN received in the WUR PPDU. If separate secret Keys are negotiated exclusively for use with WUR PPDUs, the PNs maintained for WUR PPDUs are different from the ones used during PCR. If the value of the received P-PN is less than the value of the corresponding bits of the PN, the higher bits of the PN is incremented by one to account for rollover of the P-PN bits.

<FIG> shows the frame format of a secure WUR frame <NUM> as per the seventh embodiment. The Mac header <NUM> of the WUR frame <NUM> consists of a Frame control field <NUM>, a Receiver Address (RA) field <NUM> and a Partial PN (P-PN) field <NUM>. The frame control field follows the same format as the Frame control field <NUM> in <FIG>. In order to differentiate secure WUR frames from unsecure WUR frames, the AP sets the Security bit within the Frame Control field <NUM> to <NUM>. The Security bit alerts the receiving WUR STA of the presence of a MIC field within the WUR frame. The RA field <NUM> may be set to a receiving WUR STA's assigned WUR ID (WID), for example its AID12. The P-PN field <NUM> is used as a partial packet number and the AP may choose to transmit the PN-<NUM> octet of the PN <NUM> in <FIG> as the P-PN. The Frame body field <NUM> is optional and may only be present in certain frame types. In order to create a secure WUR frame, the AP computes a MIC over the entire WUR frame using a pre negotiated cryptographic function and with the PN associated with the secret Key used for the MIC computation as the cryptographic salt. The AP's TA (BSSID) is also used as additional input for the MIC computation. The FCS field of the frame is replaced by the computed MIC field <NUM> which serves as an authentication tag and at the same time also serves to detect any error in the WUR frame.

If the WUR frame <NUM> in <FIG> is a unicast frame, the AP uses its secret Key, for example the Temporal Key (TK) portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK, the BSSID as well as the PN associated with the pairwise secret Key as input to the cryptographic algorithm to compute the MIC over the entire WUR frame except the FCS field (i.e. the MAC header <NUM> as well as the optional Frame Body <NUM> if it exists).

At a receiving WUR STA, when it receives the secure WUR frame <NUM> and after determining it to be a unicast WUR frame, confirms that the RA field <NUM> matches the STA's WID. If the RA matches, the STA uses its secret key, for example the Temporal Key (TK') portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK, its BSSID' as well as the local PN' (after updating with the received P-PN <NUM>) as input to the cryptographic algorithm over the entire WUR frame except the FCS field (i.e. the MAC header <NUM> as well as the optional Frame Body <NUM> if it exists) to obtain a MIC'. For example, if the AP had indicated during the initial WUR mode negotiation that SHA-<NUM> is to be used as the Cipher suite to use for pairwise communication, the cryptographic process at the STA may be summarized as: <MAT>.

Even though a WUR STA tries to keep its local PN synchronized with the AP's PN, at times the two may be out of synchronization. This would lead to MIC verification failure at the WUR STA and a WUR PPDU would turn up with corrupted MIC at the STA. A WUR STA may detect a PN synchronization issue when it keep receiving WUR PPDUs with a RA field that matches its WID but the MIC verification keeps failing. In order to recover from such PN synchronization issue, a WUR STA may transmit a WUR Action frame <NUM> in <FIG> to the AP to request a PN update. The WUR Action frame <NUM> is the same as the WUR Action frame <NUM> in <FIG> with an additional PN update element <NUM>. A WUR STA sets the Request/Response bit <NUM> in the PN Update field <NUM> to Request to request a PN update. The STA also sets the Unicast bit <NUM>, Multicast bit <NUM> or the Broadcast bit <NUM> to indicate which PN update it is requesting. Upon receiving a request for PN update, the AP transmits the WUR Action frame <NUM> with the Request/Response bit <NUM> in the PN Update field <NUM> set to Response and the PN field <NUM> carrying the value of the PN maintained by the AP for the corresponding Key (unicast, multicast or broadcast). Upon receiving the PN update element, the WUR STA replaces its local PN with the PN field <NUM>.

Referring to <FIG>, a hybrid solution is presented for secure transmission of WUR frames that do not carry a unique number that may be used as salt for the cryptographic computation. A secure WUR frame <NUM> may be created as a two-step process. In the first step, the RA field of the MAC Header <NUM> is replaced with a cryptographic hash value <NUM>. The hash value may be computed by running the cryptographic function over the RA field with a random cryptographic salt that is known to both the AP and the WUR STA, but not transmitted in the WUR frame <NUM>. The random cryptographic salt may be shared between the AP and WUR STA as disclosed in the first, third or the fifth embodiment. In the second step, the MIC field <NUM> is computed over the entire WUR frame except the FCS field as disclosed in the sixth and the seventh embodiment. The FCS field is then replaced with the MIC field <NUM>. At a receiving WUR STA, first it is verified that the MIC field <NUM> is valid and if it is, the hashed RA field <NUM> is compared with a locally computed hash value. If the two hash values are identical, the STA identifies itself as a recipient of the WUR frame <NUM> and may proceed to wake its PCR. As long a unique cryptographic salt is used for the computation of the hashed RA field <NUM>, it can be ensured that the MIC field <NUM> will be different for each WUR frame and hence a replay attack may be thwarted.

<FIG> is a block diagram of the PCR <NUM> of an example AP that implements the secure transmission scheme described in the present disclosure. The AP may be the AP <NUM> in <FIG>. The PCR <NUM> is connected to the antenna <NUM>, and is used for the transmission and reception of <NUM> signals as well as for the transmission of wakeup signals. PCR <NUM> is comprised of an RF/Analog front end <NUM>, a PHY Processing unit <NUM> and a MAC processing unit <NUM> which is connected to a Cryptographic circuitry <NUM>.

The RF/Analog front end <NUM> is responsible for transfer of analog signals to/from the antenna <NUM> and may comprise sub-components such as Automatic Gain Control (AGC), Low Pass Filter (LPF), Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) and so on.

The PHY Processing unit <NUM> is responsible for the processing of the PHY layer signals and is further comprised of the OFDM modulator/demodulator unit <NUM>. The OFDM modulator/demodulator <NUM> is responsible for the OFDM modulation of transmit signals or demodulation of received OFDM signals. On the transmission side, aside from applying OFDM modulation to <NUM> PPDUs, the OFDM modulator/demodulator <NUM> is also used to generate WUR signal (e.g. OOK) by populating selected OFDM subcarriers.

The MAC Processing unit <NUM> is responsible for various MAC related processing such as retransmission, fragmentation, aggregation etcetera. In addition, the MAC Processing unit <NUM> also incorporates the WUR payload generator <NUM> which is responsible for generating the contents of the payload carried in WUR packets transmitted by the AP.

The Cryptographic circuitry <NUM> is used for the cryptographic computation to create secure WUR PPDUs. An AP uses the Cryptographic circuitry <NUM> to generate the Message Integrity Code (MIC) to be used in secure WUR PPDUs. The Cryptographic circuitry <NUM> may also be used for encryption and decryption of protected <NUM> frames during the PCR mode.

<FIG> is a more detailed block diagram of an example AP <NUM> capable of transmitting secure WUR PPDUs, which may be the AP <NUM> in <FIG>. The AP <NUM> comprises a Central Processing Unit (CPU) <NUM> coupled to a memory <NUM>, a secondary storage <NUM>, one or more wireless communication interfaces <NUM>, as well as other wired communication interfaces <NUM>. The secondary storage <NUM> may be a non-volatile computer readable storage medium that is used to permanently store pertinent instruction codes, data etc..

At the time of start up, the CPU <NUM> may copy the instruction codes as well as related data to the volatile memory <NUM> for execution. The instruction code may be an operating system, user applications, device drivers, execution codes etc. which are required for the operation of the AP <NUM>. The size of the instruction code and hence the storage capacity of both the secondary storage <NUM> as well as the memory <NUM> may be substantially bigger than that of the STA <NUM> in <FIG>.

The AP <NUM> may also comprise a power source <NUM> which in most cases may be a power mains but in some cases may also be some kind of high capacity battery for e.g. a car battery. The wired communication interface <NUM> may be an ethernet interface, or a powerline interface, or a telephone line interface etc..

The wireless communication interface <NUM> may comprise an interface for cellular communication, or an interface for short range communication protocols such as Zigbee, or it may be a WLAN interface. The Wireless interface <NUM> may further comprise a MAC module <NUM> and a PHY module <NUM>. The MAC module <NUM> of an AP may be substantially more complicated than that of a STA <NUM> in <FIG> and may comprise many sub-modules. Among other sub-modules, the MAC module <NUM> may be comprised of a WUR Payload Generator <NUM>, a PCR payload generator <NUM> and a Packet scheduler <NUM>. The PHY module <NUM> is responsible for the conversion of the MAC module data to/from the transmission/reception signals and is further comprised of an OFDM modulator/demodulator <NUM>. The Cryptographic circuitry <NUM> is used for the cryptographic computation to create secure WUR PPDUs and may also be used for encryption and decryption of protected <NUM> frames during the PCR mode. The wireless interface may also be coupled, via the PHY module, to one or more antennas <NUM> that are responsible for the actual transmission/reception of the wireless communication signals on/from the wireless medium.

An AP as per the present disclosure may comprise many other components that are not illustrated, for sake of clarity, in <FIG> and <FIG>. Only those components that are most pertinent to the present disclosure are illustrated.

<FIG> illustrates a WUR STA <NUM> that is capable of receiving secure WUR PPDUs and is equipped with two separate radios: a PCR <NUM> for transmitting and receiving <NUM> OFDM signals and a WUR <NUM> for receiving WUR signals.

The WUR <NUM> is further comprised of several sub components such as an RF/Analog Front End <NUM> responsible for receiving the analog radio signals from the antenna <NUM>, a WUR Preamble Detection module <NUM> responsible for detecting and decoding the preamble portion of the wake up signal, and a WUR Packet Decoding/Processing module <NUM> responsible for decoding and processing the payload portion of the wakeup signal.

The PCR <NUM> is comprised of an RF/Analog front end <NUM>, a PHY processing unit <NUM>, and a MAC processing unit <NUM>. The RF/Analog front end <NUM> is responsible for transfer of analog signals to/from the antenna <NUM> and may comprise sub-components such as Automatic Gain Control (AGC), Low Pass Filter (LPF), Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) and so on. The PHY Processing unit <NUM> is responsible for the processing of the PHY layer signals and is further comprised of an OFDM modulator/demodulator <NUM> that is responsible for the modulation of transmit OFDM signals or demodulation of received OFDM signals.

The Cryptographic circuitry <NUM> is used for the cryptographic computation to verify secure WUR PPDUs. A STA uses the Cryptographic circuitry <NUM> to generate the Message Integrity Code (MIC) to be used for comparing against the MIC carried in secure WUR PPDUs. The Cryptographic circuitry <NUM> may also be used for encryption and decryption of protected <NUM> frames during the PCR mode.

<FIG> is a detailed block diagram of an example STA <NUM> that is capable of receiving secure WUR PPDUs as described in the present disclosure and may be STA <NUM> or STA <NUM> in <FIG>. The STA <NUM> is comprised of a Central Processing Unit (CPU) <NUM> coupled to a memory <NUM>, a secondary storage <NUM>, one or more PCR interfaces <NUM> as well a WUR interface <NUM>. Both the PCR interface <NUM> and the WUR interface <NUM> are connected to the same wireless antenna <NUM>. The secondary storage <NUM> may be a non-volatile computer readable storage medium that is used to permanently store pertinent instruction codes, data etc..

At the time of start up, the CPU <NUM> may copy the instruction codes as well as related data to the volatile memory <NUM> for execution. The instruction code may be an operating system, user applications, device drivers, execution codes etc. which are required for the operation of the STA <NUM>. The STA <NUM> may also comprise a power source <NUM> for example a lithium ion battery or a coin cell battery etc. or it may also be Mains electricty. The PCR interface <NUM> may comprise an interface for cellular communication, or an interface for short range communication protocols such as Zigbee, or it may be a WLAN interface.

The PCR interface <NUM> is comprised of a MAC module <NUM> and a PHY module <NUM> which is further comprised of an OFDM Modulator/Demodulator <NUM>.

The WUR interface <NUM> is comprised of several sub components such as an RF/Analog Front End <NUM> responsible for receiving the analog radio signals from the antenna <NUM>, a WUR Preamble Detection module <NUM> responsible for detecting and decoding the preamble portion of the wake up signal, a WUR Packet Decoding/Processing module <NUM> responsible for decoding and processing WUR frames which may involve verification of secure WUR frames. The WUR interface <NUM> may also store the dedicated secret Keys <NUM> used for the cryptographic computations for verification of secure WUR PPDUs. The WUR interface <NUM> may also maintain independent WUR Replay Counters <NUM> used to detect replay attacks. At any point in time, only one of the wireless interfaces is expected to be in operation, either the PCR interface <NUM> or the WUR interface <NUM>.

The Cryptographic circuitry <NUM> is used for the cryptographic computation to verify secure WUR PPDUs and may also be used for encryption and decryption of protected <NUM> frames during the PCR mode. A STA as per the present disclosure may comprise many other components that are not illustrated, for sake of clarity, in <FIG> or <FIG>. Only those components that are most pertinent to the present disclosure are illustrated.

In the foregoing embodiments, the present disclosure is configured with hardware by way of example, but may also be provided by software in cooperation with hardware.

In addition, the functional blocks used in the descriptions of the embodiments are typically implemented as LSI devices, which are integrated circuits. The functional blocks may be formed as individual chips, or a part or all of the functional blocks may be integrated into a single chip. The term "LSI" is used herein, but the terms "IC," "system LSI," "super LSI" or "ultra LSI" may be used as well depending on the level of integration.

In addition, the circuit integration is not limited to LSI and may be achieved by dedicated circuitry or a general-purpose processor other than an LSI. After fabrication of LSI, a field programmable gate array (FPGA), which is programmable, or a reconfigurable processor which allows reconfiguration of connections and settings of circuit cells in LSI may be used.

Should a circuit integration technology replacing LSI appear as a result of advancements in semiconductor technology or other technologies derived from the technology, the functional blocks could be integrated using such a technology. Another possibility is the application of biotechnology and/or the like.

Claim 1:
A station (<NUM>-<NUM>), comprising:
a receiver (<NUM>, <NUM>) configured to receive, from an access point (<NUM>), a wake-up radio, WUR, frame (<NUM>)
characterized by
the WUR frame (<NUM>) containing Message Integrity Code, MIC, that is computed, by the access point, using a temporal key, a unique number, and a transmitter address of the access point; and
the station (<NUM>-<NUM>) comprising circuitry (<NUM>) configured to compute a local MIC using the temporal key and a local number, and authenticate the WUR frame if the computed local MIC matches the MIC of the WUR frame, wherein
the unique number is a part of time synchronization function, TSF, timer.