The 802.1X Standard

IEEE 802.1X is an IEEE Standard for Port-based Network Access Control (PNAC). It is part of the IEEE 802.1 group of networking protocols. It provides an authentication mechanism to devices wishing to attach to a LAN or WLAN.

IEEE 802.1X defines the encapsulation of the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) over IEEE 802, which is known as "EAP over LAN" or EAPOL. EAPOL was originally designed for IEEE 802.3 Ethernet in 802.1X-2001, but was clarified to suit other IEEE 802 LAN technologies such as IEEE 802.11 wireless and Fiber Distributed Data Interface (ISO 9314-2) in 802.1X-2004. The EAPOL protocol was also modified for use with IEEE 802.1AE (“MACsec”) and IEEE 802.1AR (Secure Device Identity, DevID) in 802.1X-2010 to support service identification and optional point to point encryption over the local LAN segment.

802.1X authentication helps mitigate many of the risks involved in using WEP. For example, one of the biggest problems with WEP is the long life of keys and the fact that they are shared among many users and are well known. With 802.1X, each station could have a unique WEP key for every session. The Authenticator (Wireless Access Point) could also choose to change the WEP key very frequently, such as once every 10 minutes or every 1000 frames. 802.1X does not guarantee improved security. For example, an authenticator might never change the key it hands out to each supplicant. Or, the network manager might select an authentication method that does not allow for distribution of WEP keys. 802.1X does, however, give the informed network manager the potential to design and implement a more secure WLAN.