title: Network Authentication
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- title: Network
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General
- Most types of network authentication, where a client authenticates itself to a switch or a wireless access point, uses IEEE 802.1X (aka dot1x) (excluding approaches like e.g. PSK and MACsec).
- Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) is generally the framework used for dot1x, using Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) as the underlying protocol.
- Examples of authentication servers include FreeRADIUS and Cisco ISE, which may use internal client identities or use an upstream identity provider like Active Directory (AD).
Usage Examples
Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)
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- WPA Enterprise w/o provider certificate validation is unsafe? Yes.
- PEAP encapsulates inner authentication method, e.e. EAP-MSCHAPv2, using e.g. TLS.
- MS-CHAPv2 is old and uses DES. Inside PEAP is fine.
- Both PEAP and MS-CHAPv2 provide mutual authentication and don't transmit the password in plaintext.
- EAP-TLS requires the client device to have both the provider cert and a provider-provided client cert (with private key).
- PEAPv0 with EAP-MSCHAPv2 without CA cert validation = bad and crackable.
Tips and Best Practices
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