0

Say we have two WPA2 enterprise setups using a RADIUS server. If both implementations use MSCHAPV2 and the same credentials. Which of the two would be more secure and how are these two implementations actually different.

The difference between these 2 implementations is that one uses Tunneled TLS (TTLS) and the other PEAP.

By secure I mean protection to:

  • Bypassing authentication
  • Session hijacking
  • Sniffing traffic ( and decoding )
Corne
  • 11
  • 1
  • 6

1 Answers1

0

The most upvoted answer:

PEAPv0, PEAPv1 and TTLS have the same security properties.

PEAP is a SSL wrapper around EAP carrying EAP. TTLS is a SSL wrapper around diameter TLVs carrying RADIUS authentication attributes.

EAP-TTLS-PAP can be useful over EAP-PEAP if backend authentication database store credentials in a non-reversible hash format such as bigcrypt or any form not compatible with MSCHAP (NT-OWF) In this case it is not possible to authenticate using any of the CHAP based methods.

While you could also emulate PAP using EAP-PEAPv1-GTC this is not as widely supported by clients.

PEAP has some added baggage over TTLS in the form of PEAP version negotiation headaches and historical incompatibilities in PEAPv1 (Such as client magic when deriving master key from PRF) which have made their way into early implementations.

I normally see EAP-TTLS implemented in embedded clients such as subscriber modules in wireless gear with PEAP used more by laptop computers and mobile handsets.

EAP-TTLS has historically not been supported in Windows clients without having to install third party software. EAP-TTLS is now supported starting with Windows 8.

Some additional thoughts:

EAP-TTLS was invented by a RADIUS vendor. EAP-PEAPv0 was invented by Microsoft. EAP-PEAPv1 came out of the IETF process.

There was some additional IETF work on a PEAPv2 which would have made the system more secure by way of crypto bindings to inner authentication methods. This has not gone anywhere as near as I can tell.

The accepted answer was:

You can support both, if your RADIUS backend supports it. However some clients "auto"-connects (Mac OS X >= 10.7 + iOS for example), and they might work less than optimal if you support more than one type, since they just try different combinations until one of them works i.e. they connect with less hassle if there's only one way to connect.

So Basically: support PEAP only, or PEAP+TTLS if you have clients that require TTLS.

Source: Why would you use EAP-TTLS instead of PEAP?

feral_fenrir
  • 713
  • 5
  • 15
  • Short follow up question: since PEAP uses SSL, Doesn’t that make the TLS implementation more secure since SSL is vulnerable to POODLE, heartbleed and shellshock? – Corne Sep 22 '15 at 13:43