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This memo defines the requirements for a tunnel-based Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) Method. This method will use Transport Layer Security (TLS) to establish a secure tunnel. The tunnel will provide support for password authentication, EAP authentication and the transport of additional data for other purposes.
1.
Introduction
2.
Conventions Used In This Document
3.
Use Cases
3.1.
Password Authentication
3.2.
Protect Weak EAP Methods
3.3.
Chained EAP Methods
3.4.
Identity Protection
3.5.
Emergency Services Authentication
3.6.
Network Endpoint Assessment
3.7.
Credential Provisioning and Enrollment
3.8.
Resource Constrained Environments
3.9.
Client Authentication During Tunnel Establishment
3.10.
Extensibility
4.
Requirements
4.1.
General Requirements
4.1.1.
RFC Compliance
4.1.2.
Draw from Existing Work
4.2.
Tunnel Requirements
4.2.1.
TLS Requirements
4.2.1.1.
Cipher Suites
4.2.1.1.1.
Cipher Suite Negotiation
4.2.1.1.2.
Tunnel Data Protection Algorithms
4.2.1.1.3.
Tunnel Authentication and Key Establishment
4.2.1.2.
Tunnel Replay Protection
4.2.1.3.
TLS Extensions
4.2.1.4.
Peer Identity Privacy
4.2.1.5.
Session Resumption
4.2.2.
Fragmentation
4.2.3.
EAP Header Protection
4.3.
Tunnel Payload Requirements
4.3.1.
Extensible Attribute Types
4.3.2.
Request/Challenge Response Operation
4.3.3.
Mandatory and Optional Attributes
4.3.4.
Vendor Specific Support
4.3.5.
Result Indication
4.3.6.
Internationalization of Display Strings
4.4.
EAP Channel Binding Requirements
4.5.
Requirements Associated with Carrying Username and Passwords
4.5.1.
Security
4.5.1.1.
Confidentiality and Integrity
4.5.1.2.
Authentication of Server
4.5.1.3.
Server Credential Revocation Checking
4.5.2.
Internationalization
4.5.3.
Meta-data
4.5.4.
Password Change
4.6.
Requirements Associated with Carrying EAP Methods
4.6.1.
Method Negotiation
4.6.2.
Chained Methods
4.6.3.
Cryptographic Binding with TLS Tunnel
4.6.4.
Peer Initiated
4.6.5.
Method Meta-data
5.
IANA Considerations
6.
Security Considerations
6.1.
Ciphersuite Selection
6.2.
Tunneled Authentication
6.3.
Outer EAP Method Header
7.
References
7.1.
Normative References
7.2.
Informative References
§
Authors' Addresses
§
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements
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Running EAP methods within a TLS protected tunnel has been deployed in several different solutions. EAP methods supporting this include PEAP, TTLS (Funk, P. and S. Blake-Wilson, “EAP Tunneled TLS Authentication Protocol Version 0 (EAP-TTLSv0),” April 2008.) [I‑D.funk‑eap‑ttls‑v0] and EAP-FAST (Cam-Winget, N., McGrew, D., Salowey, J., and H. Zhou, “The Flexible Authentication via Secure Tunneling Extensible Authentication Protocol Method (EAP-FAST),” May 2007.) [RFC4851]. There have been various reasons for employing a protected tunnel for EAP processes. They include protecting weak authentication exchanges, such as username and password. In addition a protected tunnel can provide a means to provide peer identity protection and EAP method chaining. Finally, systems have found it useful to transport additional types of data within the protected tunnel.
This document describes the requirements for an EAP tunnel method as well as for a password protocol supporting legacy password databases within the tunnel method.
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Because this specification is an informational specification (not able to directly use [RFC2119] (Bradner, S., “Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels,” March 1997.)), the following capitalized words are used to express requirements language used in this specification. Use of each capitalized word within a sentence or phrase carries the following meaning during the EMU WG's method selection process:
MUST - indicates an absolute requirement
MUST NOT - indicates something absolutely prohibited
SHOULD - indicates a strong recommendation of a desired result
SHOULD NOT - indicates a strong recommendation against a result
MAY - indicates a willingness to allow an optional outcome
Lower case uses of "MUST", "MUST NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT" and "MAY" carry their normal meaning and are not subject to these definitions.
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To motivate and explain the requirements in this document, a representative set of use cases for the EAP tunnel method are supplied here. The candidate tunnel method is expected to meet all of the use cases marked as MUST.
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Many legacy systems only support user authentication with passwords. Some of these systems require transport of the actual username and password to the authentication server. This is true for systems where the authentication server does not have access to the cleartext password or a consistent transform of the cleartext password. Example of such systems are one time password (OTP) systems and other systems where the username and password are submitted to an external party for validation. The tunnel method MUST meet this use case. However, it MUST NOT expose the username and password to untrusted parties and it MUST provide protection against man-in-the-middle and dictionary attacks.
Since EAP authentication occurs before network access is granted the tunnel method SHOULD provide support for minimal password management tasks including password change, "new PIN mode", and "next token mode" required by some systems.
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Some existing EAP methods have vulnerabilities that could be eliminated or reduced by running them inside a protected tunnel. For example, a method such as EAP-MD5 does not provide mutual authentication or protection from dictionary attacks. In addition, tunneled EAP methods are subject to a specific form of man-in-the-middle attack described in [TUNNEL‑MITM] (Asokan, N., Niemi, V., and K. Nyberg, “Man-in-the-Middle in Tunnelled Authentication Protocols,” November 2002.).
The tunnel method MUST support protection of weak inner methods and protect against man-in-the-middle attacks associated with tunneled authentication.
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Several circumstances are best addressed by using chained EAP methods. For example, it may be desirable to authenticate the user and also authenticate the device that he or she is using. However, chained EAP methods from different conversations can be re-directed into the same conversation by an attacker giving the authenticator the impression that both conversations terminate at the same end-point. Cryptographic binding can be used to bind the results of key generating methods together or to an encompassing tunnel.
The tunnel method MUST support chained EAP methods while including strong protection against attacks on the method chaining.
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When performing an EAP authentication, the peer may want to protect its identity, only disclosing its identity to a trusted backend authentication server. This helps to maintain the privacy of the peer's identity.
The tunnel method MUST support identity protection, ensuring that peer identity is not disclosed to the authenticator and any other intermediaries before the server that terminates the tunnel method. If an inner method also provides identity protection, this protection MUST extend all the way to the server that terminates that inner method. Note that the peer may need to expose the realm portion of the EAP outer identity in the NAI [RFC4282] (Aboba, B., Beadles, M., Arkko, J., and P. Eronen, “The Network Access Identifier,” December 2005.) in a roaming scenario in order to reach the appropriate authentication server.
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When wireless VOIP service is provided, some regulations require any user to be able to gain access to the network to make an emergency telephone call. To avoid eavesdropping on this call, it's best to negotiate link layer security as with any other authentication.
Therefore, the tunnel method SHOULD allow anonymous peers or server-only authentication, but still derive keys that can be used for link layer security. The tunnel method MAY also allow for the bypass of server authentication processing on the client. Forgoing authentication increases the chance of man-in-the-middle and other types of attacks that can compromise the derived keys used for link layer security.
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The Network Endpoint Assessment (NEA) protocols and reference model described in [I‑D.ietf‑nea‑requirements] (Sangster, P., “Network Endpoint Assessment (NEA): Overview and Requirements,” April 2008.) provide a standard way to check the health ("posture") of a device at or after the time it connects to a network. If the device does not comply with the network's requirements, it can be denied access to the network or granted limited access to remediate itself. EAP is a convenient place for conducting an NEA exchange.
The tunnel method SHOULD support carrying NEA protocols such as PB-TNC [I‑D.ietf‑nea‑pb‑tnc] (Sahita, R., Hanna, S., and K. Narayan, “PB-TNC: A Posture Broker Protocol (PB) Compatible with TNC,” October 2009.). Depending on the specifics of the tunnel method, these protocols may be required to be carried in an EAP method.
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When a peer has authenticated with EAP, this is a convenient time to distribute credentials to that peer that may be used for later authentication exchanges. For example, the authentication server can provide a private key or shared key to the peer that can be used by the peer to perform rapid re-authentication or roaming. In addition there have been proposals to perform enrollment within EAP, such as [I‑D.mahy‑eap‑enrollment] (Mahy, R., “An Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) Enrollment Method,” March 2006.).
The tunnel method SHOULD support carrying credential distribution protocols.
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A growing number of "resource constrained" devices (e.g. printers and phones) are connecting to IP networks and those networks increasingly require EAP authentication to gain access. Therefore, it is natural to expect that new EAP methods be designed to work as well as possible with these devices.
For the purposes of this document, the phrase "resource constrained" means any combination of the following constraints: little processing power, small amounts of memory (both ROM and RAM), small amounts of long-term mutable storage (e.g. flash or hard drive) or none at all, and constrained power usage (perhaps due to small battery).
The tunnel method SHOULD be designed so it can be configured to work with "resource constrained" devices, when possible.
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In cases where client authentication can be performed as part of the tunnel establishment it is efficient for the tunnel method to allow this. The tunnel MUST be capable of providing client side authentication during tunnel establishment.
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The tunnel method MUST provide extensibility so that additional types of data can be carried inside the tunnel in the future. This removes the need to develop new tunneling methods for specific purposes.
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The tunnel method MUST include a Security Claims section with all security claims specified in Section 7.2 in RFC 3748 (Aboba, B., Blunk, L., Vollbrecht, J., Carlson, J., and H. Levkowetz, “Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP),” June 2004.) [RFC3748]. In addition, it MUST meet the requirement in Sections 2.1 and 7.4 of RFC 3748 that tunnel methods MUST support protection against man-in-the-middle attacks. Furthermore, all tunnel methods MUST support identity protection as specified in Section 7.3 in RFC 3748.
The tunnel method MUST be unconditionally compliant with RFC 4017 (Stanley, D., Walker, J., and B. Aboba, “Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) Method Requirements for Wireless LANs,” March 2005.) [RFC4017] (using the definition of "unconditionally compliant" contained in section 1.1 of RFC 4017). This means that the method MUST satisfy all the MUST, MUST NOT, SHOULD, and SHOULD NOT requirements in RFC 4017.
The tunnel method MUST meet all the EAP method requirements contained in the EAP Key Management Framework draft [I‑D.ietf‑eap‑keying] (Aboba, B., Simon, D., and P. Eronen, “Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) Key Management Framework,” November 2007.) or its successor. The tunnel method MUST include MSK and EMSK generation. This will enable the tunnel method to properly fit into the EAP key management framework, maintaining all of the security properties and guarantees of that framework.
The tunnel method MUST NOT be tied to any single cryptographic algorithm. Instead, it MUST support run-time negotiation to select among an extensible set of cryptographic algorithms. This "cryptographic algorithm agility" provides several advantages. Most important, when a weakness in an algorithm is discovered or increased processing power overtakes an algorithm, users can easily transition to a new algorithm. Also, users can choose the algorithm that best meets their needs.
The tunnel method MUST meet requirements pertinent to EAP method contained in Section 3 of RFC 4962 (Housley, R. and B. Aboba, “Guidance for Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) Key Management,” July 2007.) [RFC4962]. This includes: cryptographic algorithm independence; strong, fresh session keys; replay detection; keying material confidentiality and integrity; confirm cipher suite selection; and uniquely named keys. In addition, the tunnel method MUST support EAP channel bindings to enable a system based on EAP to meet the additional requirements in Section 3 of RFC 4962.
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Several existing tunnel methods are already in widespread usage: EAP-FAST [RFC4851] (Cam-Winget, N., McGrew, D., Salowey, J., and H. Zhou, “The Flexible Authentication via Secure Tunneling Extensible Authentication Protocol Method (EAP-FAST),” May 2007.), EAP-TTLS [I‑D.funk‑eap‑ttls‑v0] (Funk, P. and S. Blake-Wilson, “EAP Tunneled TLS Authentication Protocol Version 0 (EAP-TTLSv0),” April 2008.), and PEAP. Considerable experience has been gained from various deployments with these methods. This experience SHOULD be considered when evaluating tunnel methods. If one of these existing tunnel methods can meet the requirements contained in this specification then that method SHOULD be preferred over a new method.
Even if minor modifications or extensions to an existing tunnel method are needed, this method SHOULD be preferred over a completely new method so that the advantage of accumulated deployment experience and security analysis can be gained.
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Existing tunnel methods make use of TLS [I‑D.ietf‑tls‑rfc4346‑bis] (Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, “The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2,” March 2008.) to provide the protected tunnel. In general this has worked well so there is consensus to continue to use TLS as the basis for a tunnel method.
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The tunnel based method MUST support TLS version 1.2 [I‑D.ietf‑tls‑rfc4346‑bis] (Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, “The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2,” March 2008.) and SHOULD support TLS version 1.0 [RFC2246] (Dierks, T. and C. Allen, “The TLS Protocol Version 1.0,” January 1999.) and version 1.1 [RFC4346] (Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, “The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.1,” April 2006.) to enable the possibility of backwards compatibility with existing deployments. The following section discusses requirements for TLS Tunnel Establishment.
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Cipher suite negotiations always suffer from downgrading attacks when they are not secured by any kind of integrity protection. A common practice is a post integrity check in which, as soon as available, the established keys (here the tunnel key) are used to derive integrity keys. These integrity keys are then used by peer and authentication server to verify whether the cipher suite negotiation has been maliciously altered by another party.
Integrity checks prevent downgrading attacks only if the derived integrity keys and the employed integrity algorithms cannot be broken in real-time. See Section 6.1 (Ciphersuite Selection) or [KHLC07] (Hoeper, K. and L. Chen, “Where EAP Security Claims Fail,” August 2007.) for more information on this. Hence, the tunnel method MUST provide integrity protected cipher suite negotiation with secure integrity algorithms and integrity keys.
All versions of TLS meet these requirements as long as the cipher suites used provide strong authentication, key establishment and data integrity protection.
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In order to prevent attacks on the cryptographic algorithms employed by inner authentication methods, a tunnel protocol's protection needs to provide a basic level of algorithm strength. The tunnel method MUST provide at least one mandatory to implement cipher suite that provides the equivalent security of 128-bit AES for encryption and message authentication. See [NIST SP 800‑57] (Barker, E., Barker, W., Burr, W., Polk, W., and M. Smid, “Recommendation for Key Management - Part 1: General (Revised),” March 2007.) for a discussion of the relative strengths of common algorithms.
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A tunnel method MUST provide unidirectional authentication from authentication server to EAP peer or mutual authentication between authentication server and EAP peer. The tunnel method MUST provide at least one mandatory to implement cipher suite that provides certificate based authentication of the server and provides optional certificate based authentication of the client. Other types of authentication MAY be supported.
At least one mandatory to implement cipher suite MUST meet the following requirements for secure key establishment along with the previous requirements for authentication and data protection algorithms:
The mandatory to implement cipher suites MUST NOT include "export strength" cipher suites, cipher suites providing mutually anonymous authentication or static Diffie-Hellman cipher suites. NIST publication [NIST SP 800‑52] (Chernick, C., Edington III, C., Fanto, M., and R. Rosenthal, “Guidelines for the Selection and Use of Transport Layer Security (TLS) Implementations,” June 2005.) can be consulted for a list of acceptable TLS v1.0 cipher suites and [NIST SP 800‑108] (Chen, L., “Recommendation for Key Derivation Using Pseudorandom Functions,” April 2008.) for additional information on secure key derivation.
In addition a tunnel method SHOULD provide cipher suites to meet the following additional recommendations for good key establishment algorithms:
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In order to prevent replay attacks on a tunnel protocol, the message authentication MUST be generated using a time-variant input such as timestamps, sequence numbers, nonces, or a combination of these so that any re-use of the authentication data can be detected as invalid. TLS makes use of an 8 byte sequence number to protect against replay.
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In order to meet the requirements in this document TLS extensions MAY be used. For example, TLS extensions may be useful in providing certificate revocation information via the TLS OCSP extension (thus meeting the requirement in Section 4.5.1.3 (Server Credential Revocation Checking)).
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A tunnel protocol MUST support peer privacy. This requires that the username is not transmitted in the clear and, if applicable, the peer certificate is sent confidentially (i.e. encrypted).
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The tunnel method MUST support TLS session resumption as defined in [I‑D.ietf‑tls‑rfc4346‑bis] (Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, “The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2,” March 2008.). The tunnel method MAY support other methods of session resumption such as those defined in [RFC5077] (Salowey, J., Zhou, H., Eronen, P., and H. Tschofenig, “Transport Layer Security (TLS) Session Resumption without Server-Side State,” January 2008.).
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Tunnel establishment sometimes requires the exchange of information that exceeds what can be carried in a single EAP message. In addition information carried within the tunnel may also exceed this limit. Therefore a tunnel method MUST support fragmentation and reassembly.
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A tunnel method SHOULD provide protection of the outer EAP header information when possible to make sure the outer EAP header is not modified by the intermediaries.
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This section describes the payload requirements inside the tunnel. These requirements frequently express features that a candidate protocol must be capable of offering so that a deployer can decide whether to make use of that feature. This section does not state requirements about what features of each protocol must be used during a deployment.
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The payload MUST be extensible. Some standard payload attribute types will be defined to meet known requirements listed below, such as password authentication, inner EAP method, vendor specific attributes, and result indication. Additional payload attributes MAY be defined in the future to support additional features and data types.
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The payload MUST support request and response type of half-duplex operation typical of EAP. Multiple attributes may be sent in a single payload. The payload MAY support carrying on multiple authentications in a single payload packet.
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The payload MUST support marking of mandatory and optional attributes, as well as an attribute used for rejecting mandatory attributes. Mandatory attributes are attributes sent by the requester that the responder is expected to understand and MUST respond to. If the responder does not understand or support one of the mandatory attributes in the request, it MUST ignore the rest of the attributes and send a NAK attribute to decline the request. The NAK attribute MUST support inclusion of which mandatory attribute is not supported. The optional attributes are attributes that are not mandatory to support and respond to. If the responder does not understand or support the optional attributes, it can ignore these attributes.
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The payload MUST support communication of an extensible set of vendor-specific attributes. These attributes will be segmented into uniquely identified vendor specific name spaces. They can be used for experiments or vendor specific features.
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The payload MUST support result indication and its acknowledgement, so both the EAP peer and server will end up with a synchronized state. The result indication is needed after each chained inner authentication method and at the end of the authentication, so separate result indication for intermediate and final result MUST be supported.
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The payload MAY provide a standard attribute format that supports international strings. This attribute format MUST support encoding strings in UTF-8 [RFC3629] (Yergeau, F., “UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646,” November 2003.) format. Any strings sent by the server intended for display to the user MUST be sent in UTF-8 format and SHOULD be able to be marked with language information and adapted to the user's language preference.
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The so-called "lying NAS" problem is a well-documented problem with the current Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) architecture [RFC3748] (Aboba, B., Blunk, L., Vollbrecht, J., Carlson, J., and H. Levkowetz, “Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP),” June 2004.) when used with pass-through authenticators. Here, a Network Access Server (NAS), or pass-through authenticator, may authenticate to the backend AAA infrastructure using one set of credentials, while representing contrary information to EAP peers.
Such attacks can be prevented by so-called channel bindings [I‑D.clancy‑emu‑chbind] (Clancy, C. and K. Hoeper, “Channel Binding Support for EAP Methods,” November 2008.), in which key channel binding characteristics are transported from the peer to the server, allowing the server to verify whether the authenticator has advertised valid information to the peer. The server can also respond back with additional information that could be useful for the peer to decide whether or not to continue its session with the serving authenticator.
The tunnel method MUST be capable of supporting EAP channel bindings described above.
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This section describes the requirements associated with tunneled password authentication. The password authentication mentioned here refers to user or machine authentication using a legacy password database, such as LDAP, OTP, etc. These legacy user databases typically require the password in its original text form in order to authenticate the peer, hence they require the peer to send the clear text user name and password to the EAP server.
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Due to the fact that the EAP peer needs to send clear text password to the EAP server to authenticate to the legacy user database, the security measures in the following sections MUST be met.
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The clear text password exchange MUST be integrity and confidentiality protected. As long as the password exchange occurs inside an authenticated and encrypted tunnel, this requirement is met.
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The EAP server MUST be authenticated before the peer can send the clear text user name and password to the server.
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In some cases, the EAP peer needs to present its password to the server before it has network access to check the revocation status of the server's credentials. Therefore, the tunnel method MUST support mechanisms to check the revocation status of a credential. The tunnel method SHOULD make use of Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) [RFC2560] (Myers, M., Ankney, R., Malpani, A., Galperin, S., and C. Adams, “X.509 Internet Public Key Infrastructure Online Certificate Status Protocol - OCSP,” June 1999.) or Server-based Certificate Validation Protocol (SCVP) [RFC5055] (Freeman, T., Housley, R., Malpani, A., Cooper, D., and W. Polk, “Server-Based Certificate Validation Protocol (SCVP),” December 2007.) to obtain the revocation status of the EAP server certificate.
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The password authentication exchange MUST support user names and passwords in international languages. It MUST support encoding of user name and password strings in UTF-8 [RFC3629] (Yergeau, F., “UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646,” November 2003.) format. Any strings sent by the server during the password exchange and intended for display to the user MUST be sent in UTF-8 format and SHOULD be able to be marked with language information and adapted to the user's language preference.
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The password authentication exchange MUST support additional associated meta-data which can be used to indicate whether the authentication is for a user or a machine. This allows the EAP server and peer to request and negotiate authentication specifically for a user or machine. This is useful in the case of multiple inner authentications where the user and machine both need to be authenticated.
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The password authentication exchange MUST support password change, as well as other multiple round trips exchanges like new pin mode and next token mode for OTP database.
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The tunnel method MUST support the protected negotiation of the inner EAP method. It MUST NOT allow the inner EAP method negotiation to be downgraded or manipulated by intermediaries.
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The tunnel method MUST support the chaining of multiple EAP methods. The tunnel method MUST allow for the communication of intermediate result and verification of compound binding between executed inner methods when chained methods are employed.
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The tunnel method MUST provide a mechanism to bind the tunnel protocol and the inner EAP method. This property is referred to as cryptographic binding. Without such bindings attacks are feasible on tunnel methods [TUNNEL‑MITM] (Asokan, N., Niemi, V., and K. Nyberg, “Man-in-the-Middle in Tunnelled Authentication Protocols,” November 2002.) and chained methods.
Cryptographic bindings are typically achieved by securely mixing the established keying material (say tunnel key TK) from the tunnel protocol with the established keying material (say method key MK) from the inner authentication method(s) in order to derive fresh keying material. If chained EAP methods are executed in the tunnel, all derived inner keys are combined to one method key MK. The keying material derived from mixing tunnel and method keys is also referred to as compound key CTK. In particular, CTK is used to derive MSK, EMSK and other transient keys TEK, such as transient encryption keys and integrity protection keys. The key hierarchy for tunnel methods executions that derive compound keys for the purpose of cryptographic binding is depicted in Figure 1.
-----------
| TK | MK |
-----------
| |
v v
--------
| CTK |
--------
|
v
----------------
| | |
v v v
------- ------ -------
| TEK | | MSK | | EMSK |
------- ------- --------
| Figure 1: Compound Keys |
For every key deriving inner EAP method that completes successfully within the tunnel cryptographic binding MUST be performed similar to the following:
Furthermore, the compound key CTK and all keys derived from it SHOULD be derived in accordance to the guidelines for key derivations and key hierarchies as specified in Section 4.2.1.1.3 (Tunnel Authentication and Key Establishment). In particular, all derived keys MUST have a lifetime assigned that does not exceed the lifetime of any key higher in the key hierarchy, and MUST prevent domino effects.
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The tunnel method SHOULD allow for the peer to initiate an inner EAP authentication in order to meet its policy requirements for authenticating the server.
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The tunnel method MUST allow for the communication of additional data associated with an EAP method. This can be used to indicate whether the authentication is for a user or a machine. This allows the EAP server and peer to request and negotiate authentication specifically for a user or machine. This is useful in the case of multiple inner EAP authentications where the user and machine both need to be authenticated.
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This document has no IANA considerations.
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A tunnel method is often deployed to provide mutual authentication between EAP Peer and EAP Server and to generate strong key material for use in protecting lower layer protocols. In addition the tunnel is used to protect the communication of additional data, including peer identity between the EAP Peer and EAP Server from disclosure to or modification by an attacker. These sections cover considerations that affect the ability for a method to achieve these goals.
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TLS supports a wide variety of cipher suites providing a variety of security properties. The selection of strong cipher suites is critical to the security of the tunnel method. Selection of a cipher suite with weak or no authentication, such as an anonymous Diffie- Hellman based cipher suite will greatly increase the risk of system compromise. Since a tunnel method uses the TLS tunnel to transport data, the selection of a ciphersuite with weak data encryption and integrity algorithms will also increase the vulnerability of the method to attacks.
A tunnel protocol is prone to downgrading attacks if the tunnel protocol supports any key establishment algorithm that can be broken on-line. In a successful downgrading attack, an adversary breaks the selected "weak" key establishment algorithm and optionally the "weak" authentication algorithm without being detected. Here, "weak" refers to a key establishment algorithm that can be broken in real-time, and an authentication scheme that can be broken off-line, respectively. See [KHLC07] (Hoeper, K. and L. Chen, “Where EAP Security Claims Fail,” August 2007.) for more details. The requirements in this document disapprove the use of key establishment algorithms that can be broken on-line.
Mutually anonymous tunnel protocols are prone to man-in-the-middle attacks described in [KHLC07] (Hoeper, K. and L. Chen, “Where EAP Security Claims Fail,” August 2007.). During such an attack, an adversary establishes a tunnel with each the peer and the authentication server, while peer and server believe that they established a tunnel with each other. Once both tunnels have been established, the adversary can eavesdrop on all communications within the tunnels, i.e. the execution of the inner authentication method(s). Consequently, the adversary can eavesdrop on the identifiers that are exchanged as part of the EAP method and thus, the privacy of peer and/or authentication server is compromised along with any other data transmitted within the tunnels.
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In many cases a tunnel method provides mutual authentication by authenticating the server during tunnel establishment and authenticating the peer within the tunnel using an EAP method. As described in [TUNNEL‑MITM] (Asokan, N., Niemi, V., and K. Nyberg, “Man-in-the-Middle in Tunnelled Authentication Protocols,” November 2002.), this mode of operation can allow a man- in-the-middle to authenticate to the server as the peer by tunneling the inner EAP protocol messages to and from a peer executing the method outside a tunnel or with an untrustworthy server. Cryptographic binding between the established keying material from the inner authentication method(s) and the tunnel protocol verifies that the endpoints of the tunnel and the inner authentication method(s) are the same. this can thwart the attack if the inner method derived keys of sufficient strength that they cannot be broken in real-time.
In cases where the inner authentication method does not generate any or only weak key material care must be taken to ensure that the peer does not execute the inner method with the same credentials outside a protective tunnel or with an untrustworthy server.
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There are several existing EAP methods which use a similar packet format to EAP-TLS. Often for the initial portions of the exchange the execution of the method is identical except for the method ID. Protection of the outer EAP header helps to avoid vulnerabilities that may arise when an attacker attempts to modify packets to make one EAP message look like one from a different method.
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| [I-D.funk-eap-ttls-v0] | Funk, P. and S. Blake-Wilson, “EAP Tunneled TLS Authentication Protocol Version 0 (EAP-TTLSv0),” draft-funk-eap-ttls-v0-05 (work in progress), April 2008 (TXT). |
| [I-D.ietf-nea-pb-tnc] | Sahita, R., Hanna, S., and K. Narayan, “PB-TNC: A Posture Broker Protocol (PB) Compatible with TNC,” draft-ietf-nea-pb-tnc-06 (work in progress), October 2009 (TXT). |
| [I-D.ietf-nea-requirements] | Sangster, P., “Network Endpoint Assessment (NEA): Overview and Requirements,” draft-ietf-nea-requirements-07 (work in progress), April 2008 (TXT). |
| [I-D.mahy-eap-enrollment] | Mahy, R., “An Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) Enrollment Method,” draft-mahy-eap-enrollment-01 (work in progress), March 2006 (TXT). |
| [KHLC07] | Hoeper, K. and L. Chen, “Where EAP Security Claims Fail,” ICST QShine , August 2007. |
| [NIST SP 800-108] | Chen, L., “Recommendation for Key Derivation Using Pseudorandom Functions,” Draft NIST Special Publication 800-108, April 2008. |
| [NIST SP 800-52] | Chernick, C., Edington III, C., Fanto, M., and R. Rosenthal, “Guidelines for the Selection and Use of Transport Layer Security (TLS) Implementations,” NIST Special Publication 800-52, June 2005. |
| [NIST SP 800-57] | Barker, E., Barker, W., Burr, W., Polk, W., and M. Smid, “Recommendation for Key Management - Part 1: General (Revised),” NIST Special Publication 800-57, March 2007. |
| [RFC2246] | Dierks, T. and C. Allen, “The TLS Protocol Version 1.0,” RFC 2246, January 1999 (TXT). |
| [RFC4282] | Aboba, B., Beadles, M., Arkko, J., and P. Eronen, “The Network Access Identifier,” RFC 4282, December 2005 (TXT). |
| [RFC4346] | Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, “The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.1,” RFC 4346, April 2006 (TXT). |
| [RFC4851] | Cam-Winget, N., McGrew, D., Salowey, J., and H. Zhou, “The Flexible Authentication via Secure Tunneling Extensible Authentication Protocol Method (EAP-FAST),” RFC 4851, May 2007 (TXT). |
| [RFC5077] | Salowey, J., Zhou, H., Eronen, P., and H. Tschofenig, “Transport Layer Security (TLS) Session Resumption without Server-Side State,” RFC 5077, January 2008 (TXT). |
| [TUNNEL-MITM] | Asokan, N., Niemi, V., and K. Nyberg, “Man-in-the-Middle in Tunnelled Authentication Protocols,” Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2002/163, November 2002. |
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| Katrin Hoeper | |
| NIST | |
| 100 Bureau Drive, MS: 8930 | |
| Gaithersburg, MD 20899 | |
| USA | |
| Email: | khoeper@nist.gov |
| Stephen Hanna | |
| Juniper Networks | |
| 3 Beverly Road | |
| Bedford, MA 01730 | |
| USA | |
| Email: | shanna@juniper.net |
| Hao Zhou | |
| Cisco Systems, Inc. | |
| 4125 Highlander Parkway | |
| Richfield, OH 44286 | |
| USA | |
| Email: | hzhou@cisco.com |
| Joseph Salowey (editor) | |
| Cisco Systems, Inc. | |
| 2901 3rd. Ave | |
| Seattle, WA 98121 | |
| USA | |
| Email: | jsalowey@cisco.com |
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