Two-factor authentication

Part of the requirement necessary to satisfy the Federal Government Certification is two-factor authentication. Two-factor authentication is the redundant authentication of the CAC. For example, the CAC satisfies two-factor authentication by mandating that you have both the physical card and know the pin number associated with the card.

To provide support for CAC authentication, the requirement for the network is the establishment of SSH connections. Two-factor authentication constitutes authentication based on public key or certificate and username/password on the switch.