Re: public secret and public radius server. Is it secure?

[Christopher Carver <ccarver@pennswoods.net>]

vertito wrote:
>  
> vertito wrote:
>
>   
> > My question is :
> > - What can a malicious user can do with the secret? Can it alter 
> > accounting and other things? (chillispot uses chap auth-type)
> >
> > one is spell it out and try rumble it so he forms a new word from it
> >  
> >
> >     
> Is it a real security problem? I will be using accounting for facturation
> purposes...
>
>   
I am not sure what you mean by facturation.  If a hacker knows the 
shared secret, he can assume the identity of the nas and can utilize the 
radius server in any way the NAS could, including injecting fake 
accounting packets, fake auth packets, whatever.  This could potentially 
open up the potential for a DOS attack.  For these reasons you should 
always keep this secret, hence shared SECRET ;-)  But this is the way 
radius works according to the rfcs.  It isn't just a freeradius thing.

Chris Carver
Network Engineer