Method and system for establishing enhanced air interface key

Abstract

The disclosure provides a method and a system for establishing an enhanced air interface key. During a serving Radio Network Controller (RNC) relocation process, a target RNC with an enhanced security capability enables a received legacy key to perform security protection on communication in the serving RNC relocation process when the target RNC cannot learn from a relocation request sent by a source RNC whether or not a user equipment supports the enhanced security capability (); and when the target RNC receives a message from the user equipment and learns that the user equipment supports the enhanced security capability, the target RNC notifies a core network to establish and enable the enhanced air interface keys on the network side and in the user equipment respectively (). With the method of the disclosure, during the Serving Radio Network Controller (SRNC) relocation of the user equipment in a wireless communication system, when the air interface keys are enabled and the legacy or enhanced user equipment moves between a legacy network and an enhanced network, timely enabling of security keys is achieved with respect to different security capabilities, ensuring normal accomplishment of the relocation process, and therefore ensuring normal proceeding of subsequent communication.