AAA and Network Security for Mobile Access: Radius, Diameter, EAP, PKI and IP Mobility

Chapter 2. Authentication

Basic definitions and various types of authentication such as user authentication and message authentication were described in Chapter 1. As we saw, the basic philosophy of authentication is easy to understand. However, providing a complete solution typically requires understanding of all the dimensions of the problem typically through (thread analysis). This can be rather difficult as more and more sophisticated networks and services arise, and more and more sophisticated hackers deploy ever stronger computing devices against these networks everyday. Thus, it is no surprise that a large number of authentication mechanisms have been developed and standardized through a variety of standard bodies. The plethora of authentication mechanisms is so large that the Internet Architecture board (IAB) has decided to conduct a survey and a classification of various authentication mechanisms to aid the designers to better understand and track the process in the field [AUTHSRV].

In this chapter, we first delve into more details of authentication procedures and models and describe some of the most common authentication mechanisms. We also lay the groundwork for the latest and more advanced authentication mechanisms described in the final chapters of this book. Finally, at the end of this chapter, we describe the IAB classification of the authentication mechanisms, since we feel this overview enables the reader to simply place any new authentication mechanism he/she ...