IEEE 802.1AE (also known as MACsec) is a network security standard that operates at the

medium access control In IEEE 802 LAN/MAN standards, the medium access control (MAC), also called media access control, is the layer that controls the hardware responsible for interaction with the wired (electrical or optical) or wireless transmission medium. The ...

layer and defines connectionless data confidentiality and integrity for media access independent protocols. It is standardized by the IEEE 802.1 working group.

Details

Key management and the establishment of secure associations is outside the scope of 802.1AE, but is specified by 802.1X-2010. The 802.1AE standard specifies the implementation of a ''MAC Security Entities'' (SecY) that can be thought of as part of the stations attached to the same LAN, providing secure MAC service to the client. The standard defines * MACsec frame format, which is similar to the

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

frame, but includes additional fields: ** ''Security Tag'', which is an extension of the

EtherType EtherType is a two- octet field in an Ethernet frame. It is used to indicate which protocol is encapsulated in the payload of the frame and is used at the receiving end by the data link layer to determine how the payload is processed. The same ...

Message authentication code In cryptography, a message authentication code (MAC), sometimes known as an authentication tag, is a short piece of information used for authentication, authenticating and Data integrity, integrity-checking a message. In other words, it is used t ...

(Integrity Check Value, ''ICV'') * Secure ''Connectivity Associations'' that represent groups of stations connected via unidirectional ''Secure Channels'' * ''Security Associations'' within each secure channel. Each association uses its own Secure Association Key (SAK). More than one association is permitted within the channel for the purpose of key change without traffic interruption (standard requires devices to support at least two) * A default

cipher In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...

suite of GCM-AES-128 (Galois/Counter Mode of

Advanced Encryption Standard The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), also known by its original name Rijndael (), is a specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2001. AES is a variant ...

cipher with 128-bit key) ** GCM-AES-256 using a 256 bit key was added to the standard 5 years later. The Security tag inside each frame in addition to

includes: * A Connectivity Association (CA) number within the channel * A packet number (PN) to provide a unique

initialization vector In cryptography, an initialization vector (IV) or starting variable is an input to a cryptographic primitive being used to provide the initial state. The IV is typically required to be random or pseudorandom, but sometimes an IV only needs to be un ...

for encryption and authentication algorithms as well as protection against

replay attack A replay attack (also known as a repeat attack or playback attack) is a form of network attack in which valid data transmission is maliciously or fraudulently repeated or delayed. This is carried out either by the originator or by an adversary w ...

s * An optional LAN-wide Secure Channel Identifier (SCI), which is not required on point-to-point links. The IEEE 802.1AE (MACsec) standard specifies a set of protocols to meet the security requirements for protecting data traversing Ethernet LANs. MACsec allows unauthorized LAN connections to be identified and excluded from communication within the network. In common with IPsec and TLS, MACsec defines a security infrastructure to provide data confidentiality,

data integrity Data integrity is the maintenance of, and the assurance of, data accuracy and consistency over its entire Information Lifecycle Management, life-cycle. It is a critical aspect to the design, implementation, and usage of any system that stores, proc ...

and

data origin authentication In information security, message authentication or data origin authentication is a property that a message has not been modified while in transit (data integrity) and that the receiving party can verify the source of the message. Description M ...

. By assuring that a frame comes from the station that claimed to have sent it, MACSec can mitigate attacks on Layer 2 protocols. Publishing history: * 2006 – Original publication (802.1AE-2006) * 2011 – 802.1AEbn amendment adds the option to use 256 bit keys to the standard. (802.1AEbn-2011) * 2013 – 802.1AEbw amendment defines GCM-AES-XPN-128 and GCM-AES-XPN-256 cipher suites in order to extend the packet number to 64 bits. (802.1AEbw-2013) * 2017 – 802.1AEcg amendment specifies Ethernet Data Encryption devices. (802.1AEcg-2017) * 2018 – 802.1AE-2018 * 2023 – 802.1AEdk-2023 amendment adding the option to reduce the ability of external observers to correlate user data frames, their sizes, transmission timing and transmission frequency with users’ identities and activities.

References

External links

802.1AE-2018

MACsec Toolkit
- A source code toolkit implementation of IEEE 802.1X-2010 (MACsec control plane) and IEEE802.1AE (MACsec data plane) {{IEEE standards IEEE 802 Computer network technology Cryptography standards Networking standards Link protocols

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See also

References

External links