This paper presents the first implementation of the EAP TLS (Extensible Authentication Protocol-Transport Layer Security) protocol in smartcards. Tests, performed on two java devices, are discussed and analysed. Results show that TLS processing is slow, because smartcards are not (yet) optimized for that purpose; however we clearly demonstrate that TLS processing in smartcards is not today a dream, and can be realized with existing components.

No abstract

This paper introduces an innovative concept of smartcard enabled RADIUS server. We design RADIUS servers in which EAP messages are fully processed by smartcards, called EAP-Servers. When the well known TLS protocol is used as authentication method, this architecture becomes scalable. In that case, concurrent authentication sessions are simultaneously handled by different EAP-Servers, each of them securely embeds an unique X509 certificate and its associated private key. We presents experimental results obtained with commercial components, and demonstrate that system performances, about 5 seconds per RADIUS session, are compatible with today network constraints.

Abstract. Slowly, but consistently, the digital gap between developing and developed countries is being closed. Everyday, there are initiatives towards relying on ICT to simplify the interaction between citizens and their governments in developing countries. E-government is thus becoming a reality: in Burkina Faso, all government bodies are taking part in this movement with web portals dedicated to serving the public. Unfortunately, in this rush to promote government actions within this trend of digitization, little regards is given to the security of such web sites. In many cases, government highly critical web sites are simply produced in a product line fashion using Content Management Systems which the webmasters do not quite master. We discuss in this study our findings on empirically assessing the security of government websites in Burkina Faso. By systematically scanning these websites for simple and well-known vulnerabilities, we were able to discover issues that deserved urgent attention. As an example, we were able to crawl from temporary backup files in a government web site all information (hostname, login and password in clear) to read and write directly in the database and for impersonating the administrator of the website. We also found that around 50% of the government websites are built on top of platforms suffering from 14 publicly known vulnerabilities, and thus can be readily attacked by any hacker.

This paper presents our work relating to introduction of EAP smartcards in emerging wireless LAN like Wi-Fi or WiMax. We analyse basic characteristics involved in authentication protocols from feasibility and performances points of view. We shortly introduce our open Java architecture, and underline some observed interoperability issues. We present and analyze results obtained with five different smartcards, for two authentication scenarios: the first one works with an asymmetric algorithm (EAP-TLS, a transparent transport of the well known SSL standard), and the second method uses the EAP-AKA protocol, which is an adaptation of the symmetric Milenage algorithm. We introduce a new class of smartcard which acts as EAP server, and that has been successfully tested in operational networks. Finally we suggest a new way to manage and use smartcards, remotely and securely, by using Trusted EAP Modules.