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WPA3 Enterprise 192-bit mode at home

smallstep.com

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Re: WPA3 Enterprise 192-bit mode at home

#91
post #73
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at smallstep. Yes. This also works with FreeRadius! We decided to integrate RADIUS into our product since setting up FreeRadius is complicated and, if you're just doing EAP-TLS for Wifi, you don't need all of the features. You don't need to use our hosted RADIUS though.

Right. I think it makes a lot of sense to integrate Radius in your product. But the only way giving full trust to a third party ca could be dubbed "NSA-grade" - would be that it puts you within the reach of the NSA by way of an NSL to that third party? (I'm not generally aiming to mitigate state level actors, but you put "NSA-grade" in the headline...).

Well... the title is hyperbolic (as titles are wont to be), but the goal was to configure Wifi that aligns with the CNSA Suite[1] / CNSSP 15[2], which I think is fair to call "NSA-grade" since they wrote the standard.

If the NSA wants to get a certificate that your system trusts there are already dozens of organizations with root certs in your system trust store that they can strongarm. Most organizations can't afford to have the NSA in their threat model. You better not be using public clouds, GSuite, Okta, Azure AD/Entra, etc. This is a difficult security posture to maintain, especially at scale.

For most organizations, delegating the operation of sensitive security infrastructure to a third party results in better security, not worse. Yes, you're trusting a third party. But you're also outsourcing sensitive security operations to experts.

And, we also have on-prem and open source if you really need something air-gapped ;)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_National_Security_A... [2] https://www.cnss.gov/CNSS/issuances/Policies.cfm

Re: WPA3 Enterprise 192-bit mode at home

#93
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish more consumer devices supported multiple PSKs on the same SSID Could you name any enterprise APs that do this, short of running your own custom AP software? As far as I know (would love to be corrected on this), Unifi APs can't do this, and they're at the very least "prosumer".

It seems that feature has been added in a recent update. https://community.ui.com/releases/UniFi-Network-Application-...

I was very excited by this, but I found that some of my dumber IoT devices would refuse to connect to the network if it used PPSK. If I connect them to a separate SSID I use for IoT devices with a basic WPA2 PSK, they work totally fine, but I didn't dig too much so it could also be user error

Re: WPA3 Enterprise 192-bit mode at home

#94
I would like to see something like this for “home” setups but it would have a much better user experience:

1) user attempts to connect to “home-wifi”

2) owner of “home-wifi” gets notification to confirm or deny access request

3) owner can optionally verify further

4) if approved, then between AP and client device it will create the client certificates with short expiration dates

5) if denied, then no access granted.

6) if user tries to connect multiple times and gets denied for all of them, then their device is blacklisted. No notification.

No more passwords. Minimal friction to adoption.

Re: WPA3 Enterprise 192-bit mode at home

#95
post #64

Personally I've essentially given up on depending on WiFi auth for anything important. For general access, segmenting various users, IOT etc for performance, monitoring and light privacy WPA-EAP and PPSKs with VLANs does some work as an initial first layer fine and in a simple reliable way that works with everything. It's a low pass filter. But for all sensitive access I use internal Wireguard now. WiFi auth gets a c…

Would love to hear more about how you provision wireguard. I have a simple VLAN setup where I can open a tunnel from my "guest/home" network to my "lab" network (ie. docker hosts, desktop PCs that I use for development, etc) and a second tunnel from the lab network to the network that can access mgmt interfaces, however it's all mostly manual (ie. sudo wg-quick up in a terminal)

For most stuff I've been comfortable with having my OPNsense gateways be trusted points, which has struck a reasonable balance for me between convenience, security, and compatibility. So I Wireguard into that, and from there it's normal firewall and routing in one place, with the ability to lean on hardwired subnets or VLANs so that the universe of old sensitive appliance things (like UPS interfaces) can still be reached. I have site to site wg tunnels between gateways as well. For LAN usage going through a central point has generally not been a significant performance burden, the only thing I have personally that is both very demanding and secure is iSCSI and there I've gone to the trouble of just physically isolating it. Going through a point also means there isn't much in the way of provisioning to do, each client just needs the single WG to the gateway for all (or most) traffic and that's it. Most stuff can be provisioned with ansible, a few mobile clients though I just use QR codes for manually. I should really try to figure out if Wireguard can be provisioned on iOS/Android with MDM but that's been a backburner so far.

I've started to play around with having some things go exclusively into a Nebula mesh with OPNsense only running a lighthouse, but it's more work and rougher. And unlike WG to the gateway and leaning on VLANs for some older kit, really putting everything behind a virtual network they don't natively support requires sticking a translator between them and the rest of the network. Fun to play with a little and the potential is cool, but I don't think there are any prebaked options as smooth and cheap as would be ideal for that, and I suspect the ROI there at my level is getting pretty dang low. IPMI access is the main place I think might be worth it since that's just so sensitive yet simultaneously so useful in resolving issues all while having extremely mediocre security on its own.

Whereas WG to the gateway does leave the gateway as a point of failure, but I'm depending on that to a significant degree for now anyway. And it is fast, simple, reliable, easy to manage/reason about, and eliminates layer 2 auth from the picture entirely. Don't have to worry about someone plugging into some open ethernet port either for example and any necessary effort to secure those, not just WiFi. Threats may evolve but hopefully the options we have to combat them evolve in concert to some degree. Lots of other HNers are vastly more experienced in this then me, and I'm not unaware of some of the potential failure points, but it's hard sometimes to figure out how to balance risk vs resources we have to spend on them (not just money but time).

Also there are other good gateway/firewall options like VyOS, or just working directly off your favorite flavor of Linux or OpenBSD or whatever, that might fit your needs/preferences/tooling better than OPNsense. I don't mean to suggest that it is the best choice, it's just what I've settled in on as a good balance of other values.

Re: WPA3 Enterprise 192-bit mode at home

#96
post #64

Personally I've essentially given up on depending on WiFi auth for anything important. For general access, segmenting various users, IOT etc for performance, monitoring and light privacy WPA-EAP and PPSKs with VLANs does some work as an initial first layer fine and in a simple reliable way that works with everything. It's a low pass filter. But for all sensitive access I use internal Wireguard now. WiFi auth gets a c…

[deleted]

Re: WPA3 Enterprise 192-bit mode at home

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what I do. IoT stuff sits on its own AP attached to a jailed LAN.

So do you have to switch the wifi on your phone to access the IoT stuff?

I'm guessing it's the same wifi network, just on a different vlan

Re: WPA3 Enterprise 192-bit mode at home

#98
post #91
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. I think it makes a lot of sense to integrate Radius in your product. But the only way giving full trust to a third party ca could be dubbed "NSA-grade" - would be that it puts you within the reach of the NSA by way of an NSL to that third party? (I'm not generally aiming to mitigate state level actors, but you put "NSA-grade" in the headline...).

Well... the title is hyperbolic (as titles are wont to be), but the goal was to configure Wifi that aligns with the CNSA Suite[1] / CNSSP 15[2], which I think is fair to call "NSA-grade" since they wrote the standard. If the NSA wants to get a certificate that your system trusts there are already dozens of organizations with root certs in your system trust store that they can strongarm. Most organizations can't affor…

Historically, cryptosystems are broken through weaknesses in key distribution, not by cracking the encryption outright.

Re: WPA3 Enterprise 192-bit mode at home

#100
post #94

I would like to see something like this for “home” setups but it would have a much better user experience: 1) user attempts to connect to “home-wifi” 2) owner of “home-wifi” gets notification to confirm or deny access request 3) owner can optionally verify further 4) if approved, then between AP and client device it will create the client certificates with short expiration dates 5) if denied, then no access granted.…

Wardrivers with sufficient randomization to avoid any denylist you implement will get very annoying if you let those notifications interrupt you. Maybe only receive such requests while you expect guests.
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