Cisco Technology, Inc.

William C Gossman

Joseph Salowey

Amitava Das

Michael A Wright

Gopal K Dommety

Jonathan Trostle

Wayne Taylor

A method for authenticating an element in a network environment is provided that includes receiving a request for one or more triplets. One or more of the triplets may be associated with an authentication communications protocol that may be executed in order to facilitate a communication session. The method further includes returning one or more of the triplets in response to the request and initiating the communication session in response to the triplets after proper authentication of an entity associated with the request.

System and method for authenticating an element in a network environment

A method is disclosed for communicating a security credential within a network device authentication conversation. An authenticator that is coupled to a supplicant through a network performs a first message conversation resulting in creating a security context that is known to the authenticator and the supplicant. A second message conversation is initiated. The second message conversation is cryptographically protected using the same security context. A security credential is provided to the supplicant in the second message conversation. The second message conversation and first message conversation are then concluded. Specific embodiments can bootstrap digital certificates, public/private key pairs, and other credentials to supplicants, in-band, within an EAP-SIM or EAP-AKA conversation and without initiating a new session or exchanging special-purpose keys to protect distribution of the credentials.

Method and apparatus for communicating credential information within a network device authentication conversation

A system for user authentication includes a gateway operable to receive a user authentication request in an Internet Protocol format from a server. The gateway communicates the user authentication request in a Signaling System 7 protocol to a user registry. The gateway is also operable to receive a user authentication response in the Signaling System 7 protocol from the user registry. The gateway communicates the user authentication response in the Internet Protocol format to the server.

System and method for network user authentication

A system and method providing Internet protocol security without secure domain name resolution are disclosed. A processor that periodically needs to resolve domain names into network addresses has a local DNS server that includes a secure IPSEC cache, a resolver function, a security policy database, and an IPSEC layer. The cache is readable only by the IPSEC layer. Resolved domain names are cached with process and transaction identifiers that uniquely associate the resolved names with an application process and time. When resolution is needed, the cache is used to ensure that IP addresses are resolved from names that came from the application. As a result, IPSEC connections may be established without use of DNSSEC to provide secure domain name resolution.

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

William C Gossman