RADIUS
Technology & Computing abbreviation · Cybersecurity
| Stands for | Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service |
|---|---|
| Categories | Technology & Computing |
RADIUS stands for Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service, a cybersecurity abbreviation.
A networking protocol that centralizes authentication, authorization and accounting for users connecting to a network, used by enterprise Wi-Fi, VPN gateways and internet service providers.
Example: The access points forward each 802.1X login to the RADIUS server, which checks the user's directory account.
Usage notes
Developed by Livingston Enterprises in 1991 for dial-up access and standardized in RFC 2865 (2000); it uses UDP ports 1812 and 1813. Its original design protects only passwords, using MD5, so modern deployments wrap RADIUS traffic in TLS or IPsec, especially after the Blast-RADIUS vulnerability disclosed in 2024.
Related abbreviations
More cybersecurity abbreviations
- PFS – Perfect forward secrecy
- PGP – Pretty Good Privacy
- PII – Personally identifiable information
- PKI – Public key infrastructure
- PUP – Potentially unwanted program
- RaaS – Ransomware as a service
- RAT – Remote access trojan
- RBAC – Role-based access control
- RCE – Remote code execution
- RSA – Rivest-Shamir-Adleman
- SAML – Security Assertion Markup Language
- SASE – Secure access service edge