The edge layer of an IIoT architecture may need to support a variety of wired and wireless protocols such as Zigbee, IEEE 802.11, 3/4/5G, and so on. To manage trust for devices connected over Wi-Fi, authentication protocols as defined by IEEE 802.1X can be leveraged.
IEEE 802.1x provides strong authentication and authorization support. The 802.1X standard supports a variety of advanced extensible authentication protocol (EAP) types (TLS, TTLS, LEAP, and PEAP) for mutual authentication and for setting up encrypted tunnels to avoid man-in-the middle attacks.
Enabling 802.1x authentication requires an access device, which is usually a Wi-Fi access point, and an authentication server that supports RADIUS or some authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) protocol such as TACACS+.
The devices participating in 802.1X should both be able to manage the CPU load and have the memory to store strong credentials. 802.1x authentication supports devices with IP addresses. As not all...
