Network Working Group                                          N. Haller
Request for Comments: 1704                  Bell Communications Research
Category: Informational                                      R. Atkinson
                                              Naval Research Laboratory
                                                           October 1994


                      On Internet Authentication

Status of this Memo

  This document provides information for the Internet community.  This
  memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution
  of this memo is unlimited.

1. INTRODUCTION

  The authentication requirements of computing systems and network
  protocols vary greatly with their intended use, accessibility, and
  their network connectivity.  This document describes a spectrum of
  authentication technologies and provides suggestions to protocol
  developers on what kinds of authentication might be suitable for some
  kinds of protocols and applications used in the Internet.  It is
  hoped that this document will provide useful information to
  interested members of the Internet community.

  Passwords, which are vulnerable to passive attack, are not strong
  enough to be appropriate in the current Internet [CERT94].  Further,
  there is ample evidence that both passive and active attacks are not
  uncommon in the current Internet [Bellovin89, Bellovin92, Bellovin93,
  CB94, Stoll90].  The authors of this paper believe that many
  protocols used in the Internet should have stronger authentication
  mechanisms so that they are at least protected from passive attacks.
  Support for authentication mechanisms secure against active attack is
  clearly desirable in internetworking protocols.

  There are a number of dimensions to the internetwork authentication
  problem and, in the interest of brevity and readability, this
  document only describes some of them.  However, factors that a
  protocol designer should consider include whether authentication is
  between machines or between a human and a machine, whether the
  authentication is local only or distributed across a network,
  strength of the authentication mechanism, and how keys are managed.








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2. DEFINITION OF TERMS

  This section briefly defines some of the terms used in this paper to
  aid the reader in understanding these suggestions.  Other references
  on this subject might be using slightly different terms and
  definitions because the security community has not reached full
  consensus on all definitions.  The definitions provided here are
  specifically focused on the matters discussed in this particular
  document.

  Active Attack:  An attempt to improperly modify data, gain
         authentication, or gain authorization by inserting false
         packets into the data stream or by modifying packets
         transiting the data stream. (See passive attacks and replay
         attacks.)

  Asymmetric Cryptography:  An encryption system that uses different
         keys, for encryption and decryption.  The two keys have an
         intrinsic mathematical relationship to each other.  Also
         called Public~Key~Cryptography.  (See Symmetric Cryptography)

  Authentication:  The verification of the identity of the source of
         information.

  Authorization:  The granting of access rights based on an
         authenticated identity.

  Confidentiality: The protection of information so that someone not
         authorized to access the information cannot read the
         information even though the unauthorized person might see the
         information's container (e.g., computer file or network
         packet).

  Encryption: A mechanism often used to provide confidentiality.

  Integrity:  The protection of information from unauthorized
         modification.

  Key Certificate: A data structure consisting of a public key, the
         identity of the person, system, or role associated with that
         key, and information authenticating both the key and the
         association between that identity and that public key.  The
         keys used by PEM are one example of a key certificate
         [Kent93].

  Passive Attack:  An attack on an authentication system that inserts
         no data into the stream, but instead relies on being able to
         passively monitor information being sent between other



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         parties.  This information could be used a later time in what
         appears to be a valid session.  (See active attack and replay
         attack.)

  Plain-text:  Unencrypted text.

  Replay Attack:  An attack on an authentication system by recording
         and replaying previously sent valid messages (or parts of
         messages).  Any constant authentication information, such as a
         password or electronically transmitted biometric data, can be
         recorded and used later to forge messages that appear to be
         authentic.

  Symmetric Cryptography: An encryption system that uses the same key
         for encryption and decryption.  Sometimes referred to as
         Secret~Key~Cryptography.

3. AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGIES

  There are a number of different classes of authentication, ranging
  from no authentication to very strong authentication.  Different
  authentication mechanisms are appropriate for addressing different
  kinds of authentication problems, so this is not a strict
  hierarchical ordering.

  3.1 No Authentication

     For completeness, the simplest authentication system is not to
     have any.  A non-networked PC in a private (secure) location is an
     example of where no authentication is acceptable.  Another case is
     a stand-alone public workstation, such as "mail reading"
     workstations provided at some conferences,  on which the data is
     not sensitive to disclosure or modification.

  3.2 Authentication Mechanisms Vulnerable to Passive Attacks

     The simple password check is by far the most common form of
     authentication.  Simple authentication checks come in many forms:
     the key may be a password memorized by the user, it may be a
     physical or electronic item possessed by the user, or it may be a
     unique biological feature.  Simple authentication systems are said
     to be "disclosing" because if the key is transmitted over a
     network it is disclosed to eavesdroppers.  There have been
     widespread reports of successful passive attacks in the current
     Internet using already compromised machines to engage in passive
     attacks against additional machines [CERT94].  Disclosing
     authentication mechanisms are vulnerable to replay attacks.
     Access keys may be stored on the target system, in which case a



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     single breach in system security may gain access to all passwords.
     Alternatively, as on most systems, the data stored on the system
     can be enough to verify passwords but not to generate them.

  3.3 Authentication Mechanisms Vulnerable to Active Attacks

     Non-disclosing password systems have been designed to prevent
     replay attacks.  Several systems have been invented to generate
     non-disclosing passwords.  For example, the SecurID Card from
     Security Dynamics uses synchronized clocks for authentication
     information.  The card generates a visual display and thus must be
     in the possession of the person seeking authentication.  The S/Key
     (TM) authentication system developed at Bellcore generates
     multiple single use passwords from a single secret key [Haller94].
     It does not use a physical token, so it is also suitable for
     machine-machine authentication.  In addition there are challenge-
     response systems in which a device or computer program is used to
     generate a verifiable response from a non-repeating challenge.
     S/Key authentication does not require the storage of the user's
     secret key, which is an advantage when dealing with current
     untrustworthy computing systems.  In its current form, the S/Key
     system is vulnerable to a dictionary attack on the secret password
     (pass phrase) which might have been poorly chosen.  The Point-to-
     Point Protocol's CHAP challenge-response system is non-disclosing
     but only useful locally [LS92, Simpson93].  These systems vary in
     the sensitivity of the information stored in the authenticating
     host, and thus vary in the security requirements that must be
     placed on that host.

  3.4 Authentication Mechanisms Not Vulnerable to Active Attacks

     The growing use of networked computing environments has led to the
     need for stronger authentication.  In open networks, many users
     can gain access to any information flowing over the network, and
     with additional effort, a user can send information that appears
     to come from another user.

     More powerful authentication systems make use of the computation
     capability of the two authenticating parties.  Authentication may
     be unidirectional, for example authenticating users to a host
     computer system, or it may be mutual in which case the entity
     logging in is assured of the identity of the host.  Some
     authentication systems use cryptographic techniques and establish
     (as a part of the authentication process) a shared secret (e.g.,
     session key) that can be used for further exchanges.  For example,
     a user, after completion of the authentication process, might be
     granted an authorization ticket that can be used to obtain other
     services without further authentication.  These authentication



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     systems might also provide confidentiality (using encryption) over
     insecure networks when required.

4. CRYPTOGRAPHY

  Cryptographic mechanisms are widely used to provide authentication,
  either with or without confidentiality, in computer networks and
  internetworks.  There are two basic kinds of cryptography and these
  are described in this section.  A fundamental and recurring problem
  with cryptographic mechanisms is how to securely distribute keys to
  the communicating parties.  Key distribution is addressed in Section
  6 of this document.

  4.1 Symmetric Cryptography

     Symmetric Cryptography includes all systems that use the same key
     for encryption and decryption.  Thus if anyone improperly obtains
     the key, they can both decrypt and read data encrypted using that
     key and also encrypt false data and make it appear to be valid.
     This means that knowledge of the key by an undesired third party
     fully compromises the confidentiality of the system.  Therefore,
     the keys used need to be distributed securely, either by courier
     or perhaps by use of a key distribution protocol, of which the
     best known is perhaps that proposed by Needham and Schroeder
     [NS78, NS87].  The widely used Data Encryption Standard (DES)
     algorithm, that has been standardized for use to protect
     unclassified civilian US Government information, is perhaps the
     best known symmetric encryption algorithm [NBS77].

     A well known system that addresses insecure open networks as a
     part of a computing environment is the Kerberos (TM)
     Authentication Service that was developed as part of Project
     Athena at MIT [SNS88, BM91, KN93].  Kerberos is based on Data
     Encryption Standard (DES) symmetric key encryption and uses a
     trusted (third party) host that knows the secret keys of all users
     and services, and thus can generate credentials that can be used
     by users and servers to prove their identities to other systems.
     As with any distributed authentication scheme, these credentials
     will be believed by any computer within the local administrative
     domain or realm.  Hence, if a user's password is disclosed, an
     attacker would be able to masquerade as that user on any system
     which trusts Kerberos.  As the Kerberos server knows all secret
     keys, it must be physically secure.  Kerberos session keys can be
     used to provide confidentiality between any entities that trust
     the key server.






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  4.2 Asymmetric Cryptography

     In the late 1970s, a major breakthrough in cryptology led to the
     availability of Asymmetric Cryptography.  This is different from
     Symmetric Cryptography because different keys are used for
     encryption and decryption, which greatly simplifies the key
     distribution problem.  The best known asymmetric system is based
     on work by Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman and is often referred to as
     "RSA" after the authors' initials [RSA78].

     SPX is an experimental system that overcomes the limitations of
     the trusted key distribution center of Kerberos by using RSA
     Public Key Cryptography [TA91].  SPX assumes a global hierarchy of
     certifying authorities at least one of which is trusted by each
     party.  It uses digital signatures that consist of a token
     encrypted in the private key of the signing entity and that are
     validated using the appropriate public key.  The public keys are
     believed to be correct as they are obtained under the signature of
     the trusted certification authority.  Critical parts of the
     authentication exchange are encrypted in the public keys of the
     receivers, thus preventing a replay attack.

  4.3 Cryptographic Checksums

     Cryptographic checksums are one of the most useful near term tools
     for protocol designers.  A cryptographic checksum or message
     integrity checksum (MIC) provides data integrity and
     authentication but not non-repudiation.  For example, Secure SNMP
     and SNMPv2 both calculate a MD5 cryptographic checksum over a
     shared secret item of data and the information to be authenticated
     [Rivest92, GM93].  This serves to authenticate the data origin and
     is believed to be very difficult to forge.  It does not
     authenticate that the data being sent is itself valid, only that
     it was actually sent by the party that claims to have sent it.
     Crytographic checksums can be used to provide relatively strong
     authentication and are particularly useful in host-to-host
     communications.  The main implementation difficulty with
     cryptographic checksums is key distribution.

  4.4 Digital Signatures

     A digital signature is a cryptographic mechanism which is the
     electronic equivalent of a written signature.  It serves to
     authenticate a piece of data as to the sender.  A digital
     signature using asymmetric cryptography (Public Key) can also be
     useful in proving that data originated with a party even if the
     party denies having sent it; this property is called non-
     repudiation.  A digital signature provides authentication without



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     confidentiality and without incurring some of the difficulties in
     full encryption.  Digital signatures are being used with key
     certificates for Privacy Enhanced Mail [Linn93, Kent93,
     Balenson93, Kaliski93].

5. USER TO HOST AUTHENTICATION

  There are a number of different approaches to authenticating users to
  remote or networked hosts.  Two types of hazard are created by remote
  or networked access: First an intruder can eavesdrop on the network
  and obtain user ids and passwords for a later replay attack. Even the
  form of existing passwords provides a potential intruder with a head
  start in guessing new ones.

  Currently, most systems use plain-text disclosing passwords sent over
  the network (typically using telnet or rlogin) from the user to the
  remote host [Anderson84, Kantor91].  This system does not provide
  adequate protection from replay attacks where an eavesdropper gains
  remote user ids and remote passwords.

  5.1 Protection Against Passive Attack Is Necessary

     Failure to use at least a non-disclosing password system means
     that unlimited access is unintentionally granted to anyone with
     physical access to the network.  For example, anyone with physical
     access to the Ethernet cable can impersonate any user on that
     portion of the network.  Thus, when one has plain-text disclosing
     passwords on an Ethernet, the primary security system is the guard
     at the door (if any exist).  The same problem exists in other LAN
     technologies such as Token-Ring or FDDI.  In some small internal
     Local Area Networks (LANs) it may be acceptable to take this risk,
     but it is an unacceptable risk in an Internet [CERT94].

     The minimal defense against passive attacks, such as
     eavesdropping, is to use a non-disclosing password system.  Such a
     system can be run from a dumb terminal or a simple communications
     program (e.g., Crosstalk or PROCOMM) that emulates a dumb terminal
     on a PC class computer.  Using a stronger authentication system
     would certainly defend against passive attacks against remotely
     accessed systems, but at the cost of not being able to use simple
     terminals.  It is reasonable to expect that the vendors of
     communications programs and non user-programmable terminals (such
     as X-Terminals) would build in non-disclosing password or stronger
     authentication systems if they were standardized or if a large
     market were offered.  One of the advantages of Kerberos is that,
     if used properly, the user's password never leaves the user's
     workstation.  Instead they are used to decrypt the user's Kerberos
     tickets, which are themselves encrypted information which are sent



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     over the network to application servers.

  5.2 Perimeter Defenses as Short Term Tool

     Perimeter defenses are becoming more common.  In these systems,
     the user first authenticates to an entity on an externally
     accessible portion of the network, possibly a "firewall" host on
     the Internet, using a non-disclosing password system. The user
     then uses a second system to authenticate to each host, or group
     of hosts, from which service is desired.  This decouples the
     problem into two more easily handled situations.

     There are several disadvantages to the perimeter defense, so it
     should be thought of as a short term solution.  The gateway is not
     transparent at the IP level, so it must treat every service
     independently.  The use of  double authentication is, in general,
     difficult or impossible for computer-computer communication.  End
     to end protocols, which are common on the connectionless Internet,
     could easily break.  The perimeter defense must be tight and
     complete, because if it is broken, the inner defenses tend to be
     too weak to stop a potential intruder.  For example, if disclosing
     passwords are used internally, these passwords can be learned by
     an external intruder (eavesdropping).  If that intruder is able to
     penetrate the perimeter, the internal system is completely
     exposed.  Finally, a perimeter defense may be open to compromise
     by internal users looking for shortcuts.

     A frequent form of perimeter defense is the application relay.  As
     these relays are protocol specific, the IP connectivity of the
     hosts inside the perimeter with the outside world is broken and
     part of the power of the Internet is lost.

     An administrative advantage of the perimeter defense is that the
     number of machines that are on the perimeter and thus vulnerable
     to attack is small.  These machines may be carefully checked for
     security hazards, but it is difficult (or impossible) to guarantee
     that the perimeter is leak-proof.  The security of a perimeter
     defense is complicated as the gateway machines must pass some
     types of traffic such as electronic mail.  Other network services
     such as the Network Time Protocol (NTP) and the File Transfer
     Protocol (FTP) may also be desirable [Mills92, PR85, Bishop].
     Furthermore, the perimeter gateway system must be able to pass
     without bottleneck the entire traffic load for its security
     domain.







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  5.3 Protection Against Active Attacks Highly Desirable

     In the foreseeable future, the use of stronger techniques will be
     required to protect against active attacks.  Many corporate
     networks based on broadcast technology such as Ethernet probably
     need such techniques.  To defend against an active attack, or to
     provide privacy, it is necessary to use a protocol with session
     encryption, for example Kerberos, or use an authentication
     mechanism that protects against replay attacks, perhaps using time
     stamps.  In Kerberos, users obtain credentials from the Kerberos
     server and use them for authentication to obtain services from
     other computers on the network.  The computing power of the local
     workstation can be used to decrypt credentials (using a key
     derived from the user-provided password) and store them until
     needed.  If the security protocol relies on synchronized clocks,
     then NTPv3 might be useful because it distributes time amongst a
     large number of computers and is one of the few existing Internet
     protocols that includes authentication mechanisms [Bishop,
     Mills92].

     Another approach to remotely accessible networks of computers is
     for all externally accessible machines to share a secret with the
     Kerberos KDC.  In a sense, this makes these machines "servers"
     instead of general use workstations.  This shared secret can then
     be used encrypt all communication between the two machines
     enabling the accessible workstation to relay authentication
     information to the KDC in a secure way.

     Finally, workstations that are remotely accessible could use
     asymmetric cryptographic technology to encrypt communications.
     The workstation's public key would be published and well known to
     all clients.  A user could use the public key to encrypt a simple
     password and the remote system can decrypt the password to
     authenticate the user without risking disclosure of the password
     while it is in transit.  A limitation of this workstation-oriented
     security is that it does not authenticate individual users only
     individual workstations.  In some environments for example,
     government multi-level secure or compartmented mode workstations,
     user to user authentication and confidentiality is also needed.

6. KEY DISTRIBUTION & MANAGEMENT

  The discussion thus far has periodically mentioned keys, either for
  encryption or for authentication (e.g., as input to a digital
  signature function).  Key management is perhaps the hardest problem
  faced when seeking to provide authentication in large internetworks.
  Hence this section provides a very brief overview of key management
  technology that might be used.



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  The Needham & Schroeder protocol, which is used by Kerberos, relies
  on a central key server.  In a large internetwork, there would need
  to be significant numbers of these key servers, at least one key
  server per administrative domain.  There would also need to be
  mechanisms for separately administered key servers to cooperate in
  generating a session key for parties in different administrative
  domains.  These are not impossible problems, but this approach
  clearly involves significant infrastructure changes.

  Most public-key encryption algorithms are computationally expensive
  and so are not ideal for encrypting packets in a network.  However,
  the asymmetric property makes them very useful for setup and exchange
  of symmetric session keys.  In practice, the commercial sector
  probably uses asymmetric algorithms primarily for digital signatures
  and key exchange, but not for bulk data encryption.  Both RSA and the
  Diffie-Hellman techniques can be used for this [DH76].  One advantage
  of using asymmetric techniques is that the central key server can be
  eliminated.  The difference in key management techniques is perhaps
  the primary difference between Kerberos and SPX.  Privacy Enhanced
  Mail has trusted key authorities use digital signatures to sign and
  authenticate the public keys of users [Kent93].  The result of this
  operation is a key certificates which contains the public key of some
  party and authentication that the public key in fact belongs to that
  party.  Key certificates can be distributed in many ways.  One way to
  distribute key certificates might be to add them to existing
  directory services, for example by extending the existing Domain Name
  System to hold each host's the key certificate in a new record type.

  For multicast sessions, key management is harder because the number
  of exchanges required by the widely used techniques is proportional
  to the number of participating parties.  Thus there is a serious
  scaling problem with current published multicast key management
  techniques.

  Finally, key management mechanisms described in the public literature
  have a long history of subtle flaws.  There is ample evidence of
  this, even for well-known techniques such as the Needham & Schroeder
  protocol [NS78, NS87].  In some cases, subtle flaws have only become
  known after formal methods techniques were used in an attempt to
  verify the protocol.  Hence, it is highly desirable that key
  management mechanisms be kept separate from authentication or
  encryption mechanisms as much as is possible.  For example, it is
  probably better to have a key management protocol that is distinct
  from and does not depend upon another security protocol.







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RFC 1704               On Internet Authentication           October 1994


7. AUTHENTICATION OF NETWORK SERVICES

  In addition to needing to authenticate users and hosts to each other,
  many network services need or could benefit from authentication.
  This section describes some approaches to authentication in protocols
  that are primarily host to host in orientation.  As in the user to
  host authentication case, there are several techniques that might be
  considered.

  The most common case at present is to not have any authentication
  support in the protocol.  Bellovin and others have documented a
  number of cases where existing protocols can be used to attack a
  remote machine because there is no authentication in the protocols
  [Bellovin89].

  Some protocols provide for disclosing passwords to be passed along
  with the protocol information.  The original SNMP protocols used this
  method and a number of the routing protocols continue to use this
  method [Moy91, LR91, CFSD88].  This method is useful as a
  transitional aid to slightly increase security and might be
  appropriate when there is little risk in having a completely insecure
  protocol.

  There are many protocols that need to support stronger authentication
  mechanisms.  For example, there was widespread concern that SNMP
  needed stronger authentication than it originally had.  This led to
  the publication of the Secure SNMP protocols which support optional
  authentication, using a digital signature mechanism, and optional
  confidentiality, using DES encryption.  The digital signatures used
  in Secure SNMP are based on appending a cryptographic checksum to the
  SNMP information.  The cryptographic checksum is computed using the
  MD5 algorithm and a secret shared between the communicating parties
  so is believed to be difficult to forge or invert.

  Digital signature technology has evolved in recent years and should
  be considered for applications requiring authentication but not
  confidentiality.  Digital signatures may use a single secret shared
  among two or more communicating parties or it might be based on
  asymmetric encryption technology.  The former case would require the
  use of predetermined keys or the use of a secure key distribution
  protocol, such as that devised by Needham and Schroeder.  In the
  latter case, the public keys would need to be distributed in an
  authenticated manner.  If a general key distribution mechanism were
  available, support for optional digital signatures could be added to
  most protocols with little additional expense.  Each protocol could
  address the key exchange and setup problem, but that might make
  adding support for digital signatures more complicated and
  effectively discourage protocol designers from adding digital



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RFC 1704               On Internet Authentication           October 1994


  signature support.

  For cases where both authentication and confidentiality are required
  on a host-to-host basis, session encryption could be employed using
  symmetric cryptography, asymmetric cryptography, or a combination of
  both.  Use of the asymmetric cryptography simplifies key management.
  Each host would encrypt the information while in transit between
  hosts and the existing operating system mechanisms would provide
  protection within each host.

  In some cases, possibly including electronic mail, it might be
  desirable to provide the security properties within the application
  itself in a manner that was truly user-to-user rather than being
  host-to-host.  The Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) work is employing this
  approach [Linn93, Kent93, Balenson93, Kaliski93].  The recent IETF
  work on Common Authentication Technology might make it easier to
  implement a secure distributed or networked application through use
  of standard security programming interfaces [Linn93a].

8. FUTURE DIRECTIONS

  Systems are moving towards the cryptographically stronger
  authentication mechanisms described earlier.  This move has two
  implications for future systems.  We can expect to see the
  introduction of non-disclosing authentication systems in the near
  term and eventually see more widespread use of public key crypto-
  systems.  Session authentication, integrity, and privacy issues are
  growing in importance. As computer-to-computer communication becomes
  more important, protocols that provide simple human interfaces will
  become less important. This is not to say that human interfaces are
  unimportant; they are very important.  It means that these interfaces
  are the responsibility of the applications, not the underlying
  protocol.  Human interface design is beyond the scope of this memo.

  The use of public key crypto-systems for user-to-host authentication
  simplifies many security issues, but unlike simple passwords, a
  public key cannot be memorized.  As of this writing, public key sizes
  of at least 500 bits are commonly used in the commercial world.  It
  is likely that larger key sizes will be used in the future.  Thus,
  users might have to carry their private keys in some electrically
  readable form.  The use of read-only storage, such as a floppy disk
  or a magnetic stripe card provides such storage, but it might require
  the user to trust their private keys to the reading device.  Use of a
  smart card, a portable device containing both storage and program
  might be preferable.  These devices have the potential to perform the
  authenticating operations without divulging the private key they
  contain.  They can also interact with the user requiring a simpler
  form of authentication to "unlock" the card.



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RFC 1704               On Internet Authentication           October 1994


  The use of public key crypto-systems for host-to-host authentication
  appears not to have the same key memorization problem as the user-
  to-host case does.  A multiuser host can store its key(s) in space
  protected from users and obviate that problem.  Single user
  inherently insecure systems, such as PCs and Macintoshes, remain
  difficult to handle but the smart card approach should also work for
  them.

  If one considers existing symmetric algorithms to be 1-key
  techniques, and existing asymmetric algorithms such as RSA to be 2-
  key techniques, one might wonder whether N-key techniques will be
  developed in the future (i.e., for values of N larger than 2).  If
  such N-key technology existed, it might be useful in creating
  scalable multicast key distribution protocols.  There is work
  currently underway examining the possible use of the Core Based Tree
  (CBT) multicast routing technology to provide scalable multicast key
  distribution [BFC93].

  The implications of this taxonomy are clear.  Strong cryptographic
  authentication is needed in the near future for many protocols.
  Public key technology should be used when it is practical and cost-
  effective.  In the short term, authentication mechanisms vulnerable
  to passive attack should be phased out in favour of stronger
  authentication mechanisms.  Additional research is needed to develop
  improved key management technology and scalable multicast security
  mechanisms.

SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS

  This entire memo discusses Security Considerations in that it
  discusses authentication technologies and needs.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This memo has benefited from review by and suggestions from the
  IETF's Common Authentication Technology (CAT) working group, chaired
  by John Linn, and from Marcus J. Ranum.

REFERENCES

  [Anderson84]  Anderson, B., "TACACS User Identification Telnet
  Option", RFC 927, BBN, December 1984.

  [Balenson93]  Balenson, D., "Privacy Enhancement for Internet
  Electronic Mail: Part III: Algorithms, Modes, and Identifiers", RFC
  1423, TIS, IAB IRTF PSRG, IETF PEM WG, February 1993.





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RFC 1704               On Internet Authentication           October 1994


  [BFC93]  Ballardie, A., Francis, P., and J. Crowcroft, "Core Based
  Trees (CBT) An Architecture for Scalable Inter-Domain Multicast
  Routing", Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM93, ACM, San Franciso, CA,
  September 1993, pp. 85-95.

  [Bellovin89]  Bellovin, S., "Security Problems in the TCP/IP Protocol
  Suite", ACM Computer Communications Review, Vol. 19, No. 2, March
  1989.

  [Bellovin92]  Bellovin, S., "There Be Dragons", Proceedings of the
  3rd Usenix UNIX Security Symposium, Baltimore, MD, September 1992.

  [Bellovin93]  Bellovin, S., "Packets Found on an Internet", ACM
  Computer Communications Review, Vol. 23, No. 3, July 1993, pp. 26-31.

  [BM91]  Bellovin S., and M. Merritt, "Limitations of the Kerberos
  Authentication System", ACM Computer Communications Review, October
  1990.

  [Bishop]  Bishop, M., "A Security Analysis of Version 2 of the
  Network Time Protocol NTP: A report to the Privacy & Security
  Research Group", Technical Report PCS-TR91-154, Department of
  Mathematics & Computer Science, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New
  Hampshire.

  [CB94]  Cheswick W., and S. Bellovin, "Chapter 10: An Evening with
  Berferd", Firewalls & Internet Security, Addison-Wesley, Reading,
  Massachusetts, 1994.  ISBN 0-201-63357-4.

  [CERT94]  Computer Emergency Response Team, "Ongoing Network
  Monitoring Attacks", CERT Advisory CA-94:01, available by anonymous
  ftp from cert.sei.cmu.edu, 3 February 1994.

  [CFSD88]  Case, J., Fedor, M., Schoffstall, M., and  J. Davin,
  "Simple Network Management Protocol", RFC 1067, University of
  Tennessee at Knoxville, NYSERNet, Inc., Rensselaer Polytechnic
  Institute, Proteon, Inc., August 1988.

  [DH76]  Diffie W., and M. Hellman, "New Directions in Cryptography",
  IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Volume IT-11, November 1976,
  pp. 644-654.

  [GM93]  Galvin, J., and K. McCloghrie, "Security Protocols for
  Version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2)", RFC
  1446, Trusted Information Systems, Hughes LAN Systems, April 1993.






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RFC 1704               On Internet Authentication           October 1994


  [Haller94]  Haller, N., "The S/Key One-time Password System",
  Proceedings of the Symposium on Network & Distributed Systems
  Security, Internet Society, San Diego, CA, February 1994.

  [Kaufman93]  Kaufman, C., "Distributed Authentication Security
  Service (DASS)", RFC 1507, Digital Equipment Corporation, September
  1993.

  [Kaliski93]  Kaliski, B., "Privacy Enhancement for Internet
  Electronic Mail: Part IV: Key Certification and Related Services",
  RFC 1424, RSA Laboratories, February 1993.

  [Kantor91]  Kantor, B., "BSD Rlogin", RFC 1258, Univ. of Calif San
  Diego, September 1991.

  [Kent93]  Kent, S., "Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic
  Mail: Part II: Certificate-Based Key Management", RFC 1422, BBN, IAB
  IRTF PSRG, IETF PEM, February 1993.

  [KN93]  Kohl, J., and C. Neuman, "The Kerberos Network Authentication
  Service (V5)", RFC 1510, Digital Equipment Corporation,
  USC/Information Sciences Institute, September 1993.

  [Linn93]  Linn, J., "Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic
  Mail: Part I: Message Encryption and Authentication Procedures", RFC
  1421, IAB IRTF PSRG, IETF PEM WG, February 1993.

  [Linn93a]  Linn, J., "Common Authentication Technology Overview", RFC
  1511, Geer Zolot Associate, September 1993.

  [LS92]  Lloyd B., and W. Simpson, "PPP Authentication Protocols", RFC
  1334, L&A, Daydreamer, October 1992.

  [LR91]  Lougheed K., and Y. Rekhter, "A Border Gateway protocol 3
  (BGP-3)", RFC 1267, cisco Systems, T.J. Watson Research Center, IBM
  Corp., October 1991.

  [Mills92]  Mills, D., "Network Time Protocol (Version 3) -
  Specification, Implementation, and Analysis", RFC 1305, UDEL, March
  1992.

  [NBS77]  National Bureau of Standards, "Data Encryption Standard",
  Federal Information Processing Standards Publication 46, Government
  Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1977.

  [NS78]  Needham, R., and M. Schroeder, "Using Encryption for
  Authentication in Large Networks of Computers", Communications of the
  ACM, Vol. 21, No. 12, December 1978.



Haller & Atkinson                                              [Page 15]

RFC 1704               On Internet Authentication           October 1994


  [NS87]  Needham, R., and M. Schroeder, "Authentication Revisited",
  ACM Operating Systems Review, Vol. 21, No. 1, 1987.

  [PR85]  Postel J., and J. Reynolds, "File Transfer Protocol", STD 9,
  RFC 959, USC/Information Sciences Institute, October 1985.

  [Moy91]  Moy, J., "OSPF Routing Protocol, Version 2", RFC 1247,
  Proteon, Inc., July 1991.

  [RSA78]  Rivest, R., Shamir, A., and L. Adleman, "A Method for
  Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public Key Crypto-systems",
  Communications of the ACM, Vol. 21, No. 2, February 1978.

  [Rivest92]  Rivest, R., "The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm", RFC 1321,
  MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and RSA Data Security, Inc.,
  April 1992.

  [Simpson93]  Simpson, W., "The Point to Point Protocol", RFC 1548,
  Daydreamer, December 1993.

  [SNS88]  Steiner, J., Neuman, C., and J. Schiller, "Kerberos: "An
  Authentication Service for Open Network Systems", USENIX Conference
  Proceedings, Dallas, Texas, February 1988.

  [Stoll90]  Stoll, C., "The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the
  Maze of Computer Espionage", Pocket Books, New York, NY, 1990.

  [TA91]  Tardo J., and K. Alagappan, "SPX: Global Authentication Using
  Public Key Certificates", Proceedings of the 1991 Symposium on
  Research in Security & Privacy, IEEE Computer Society, Los Amitos,
  California, 1991. pp.232-244.




















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RFC 1704               On Internet Authentication           October 1994


  AUTHORS' ADDRESSES

  Neil Haller
  Bell Communications Research
  445 South Street  -- MRE 2Q-280
  Morristown, NJ 07962-1910

  Phone: (201) 829-4478
  EMail: [email protected]


  Randall Atkinson
  Information Technology Division
  Naval Research Laboratory
  Washington, DC 20375-5320

  Phone: (DSN) 354-8590
  EMail: [email protected]

































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