AAA Services used for 802.1x must be configured to use secure Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP), such as EAP-TLS, EAP-TTLS, and PEAP.

Additional new EAP methods/types are still being proposed. However, the three being considered secure are EAP-TLS, EAP-TTLS, and PEAP. PEAP is the preferred EAP type to be used in DoW for its ability to support a greater number of operating systems and its capability to transmit statement of health information, per NSA NAC study.

Lightweight EAP (LEAP) is a CISCO proprietary protocol providing an easy-to-deploy one-password authentication. LEAP is vulnerable to dictionary attacks. A "man in the middle" can capture traffic, identify a password, and then use it to access a WLAN. LEAP is inappropriate and does not provide sufficient security for use on DoW networks.

EAP-MD5 is functionally similar to CHAP and is susceptible to eavesdropping because the password credentials are sent as a hash (not encrypted). In addition, server administrators would be required to store unencrypted passwords on their servers violating other security policies. EAP-MD5 is inappropriate and does not provide sufficient security for use on DoW networks.