3 Ways Cloud RADIUS Improves Wi-Fi Security

Wireless security is crucial for organizations that need to communicate online, which is basically everyone nowadays. However, with the introduction of technology like the cloud and Wi-Fi, it’s a lot easier now to steal private data. Hackers don’t need to sneak onto the premises and unlock the server room, they can just set up a rogue Access Point within Wi-Fi range and start farming credentials.

Unsecured Wi-Fi is an easy target for malicious actors. A huge problem is the human element. The Ponemon Institute’s 2019 State of Password and Authentication Security Behaviors found that 69% of survey respondents admit they share passwords with colleagues.

There are ways to protect your Wi-Fi, such as implementing WPA2-Enterprise with 802.1x authentication. But with that you’ll need a RADIUS server, which can be difficult and time-consuming if you construct on your own. Luckily, there’s Cloud RADIUS, a turn-key cloud-based RADIUS solution built from the ground up for certificate-based authentication, eliminating over-the-air credential theft. Plus, it’s incredibly easy to configure, see for yourself by reading what one of our customers said.

There are ways to protect your Wi-Fi, such as implementing WPA2-Enterprise with 802.1x authentication. But with that you’ll need a RADIUS server, which can be difficult and time-consuming if you construct on your own. Luckily, there’s Cloud RADIUS, a turn-key cloud-based RADIUS solution that can integrate with any network. Here are just 3 ways that Cloud RADIUS can secure Wi-Fi, improve user experience, and give network admins better management over their environments.

Keep Users From Giving Away Credentials

Credentials are not a reliable form of identification as passwords are often shared among colleagues. Users can be tricked into giving away credentials through social engineering attacks like phishing attempts, which have skyrocketed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cloud RADIUS operates with digital certificates, replacing credentials as a form of network authentication. Certificates eliminate over-the-air credential theft because user credentials are encrypted within a certificate and users no longer need to remember a password.

Eliminate Over-the-Air Credential Theft with Cryptography

The weakness of passwords is expanded with credential-based authentication leaving a door open for over-the-air credential theft. Unsecured Wi-Fi networks are at serious risk because all a cybercriminal needs to do is set up a strong Access Point in Wi-Fi range, impersonate the legitimate SSID, and users will connect and send their credentials without a second thought.

With Cloud RADIUS, admins can set up certificate-based EAP-TLS authentication, the most secure authentication protocol around. EAP-TLS EAP-TLS is backed by a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), which is the framework to administer and manage certificates on a network.

Cloud RADIUS was designed to work with certificates, and comes built in with a Managed PKI and an automated certificate delivery platform. Now, you have a turnkey solution to eliminate those awful Wi-Fi password reset policies and disconnects, and the security problems that come with it.

Know Who is Behind Every Network Connection

Certificates provide a better form of identification than passwords could because passwords can be shared or stolen. There’s no way of truly knowing who’s on your network just based on credentials.

A device with a certificate and fingerprint reader provides the best assurance for who’s on your network. Certificates can be combined with security keys, like Yubikeys for example, for this security benefit as well. Once certificates are provisioned to devices or security keys, that certificate is integrated with the device and cannot be removed or transferred before expiration.

Cloud RADIUS is powered by a Dynamic Policy Engine that can revolutionize network policy enforcement, providing further user identification. With the backing of the Policy Engine, our Cloud RADIUS is the only cloud-based RADIUS that can directly reference any cloud identity provider (Google, Okta, Azure). Similar to user lookup in LDAP-AD systems, Cloud RADIUS server can directly reference a directory entry and check if the entity is authorized and any additional info attached to that entry.

With a Dynamic Policy Engine, user attributes don’t have to be stored on the certificate. Instead of going through the entire certificate lifecycle multiple times just because one user’s policies changed, admins can instead edit user attributes with our easy-to-use GUI interface. Cloud RADIUS can perform runtime-level policy decisions and changes take effect instantly, rather than 24 hours.

Stronger Wi-Fi Security with Cloud RADIUS

RADIUS is crucial for secure user authentications for network access and Cloud RADIUS improves upon that immensely. With Cloud RADIUS, network admins no longer have to worry about users accidentally giving away their credentials and over-the-air credentials is eliminated. Cloud RADIUS is also cost-effective, with an affordable price for organizations of all sizes.