Is eduroam safe to use?

eduroam is based on the most secure encryption and authentication standards in existence today. Its security by far exceeds typical commercial hotspots.

Be aware though that when using the general Internet at an eduroam hotspot, the local site security measures at that hotspot will apply to you as well. For example, the firewall settings at the visited place may be different from those you are used to at home, and as a guest you may have access to fewer services on the Internet than you have at home.

Does eduroam use a web portal for authentication?

No. Web Portal, Captive Portal or Splash-Screen based authentication mechanisms are not a secure way of accepting eduroam credentials, even if the website is protected by an HTTPS secure connection. The distributed nature of eduroam would mean that many different pages, languages and layouts would be presented to eduroam users making it impossible to distinguish between legitimate and bogus sites (even a consistent layout can be mimicked by an adversary).

eduroam requires the use of 802.1x which provides end-to-end encryption to ensure that your private user credentials are only available to your home institution. The certificate of your home institution is the only point you need to trust regardless of who operates any intermediate infrastructure. Web portals require you to trust their infrastructure as they receive your password in clear text, this breaks the end-to-end encryption tenets of eduroam.

What if a webpage asks for my username and password to access eduroam?

eduroam will never show a webpage asking for your username and/or password. This is a sign that someone is attempting to hijack your password – do not use any network that requests this information.