Summary

A number of research community use cases require users to verify their identity by using more than one type of credentials, for instance using password authentication, together with some physical object such as a phone or usb stick that generates tokens/pins, etc. At the same time, there are services that may require an already logged in user to re-authenticate using a stronger authentication mechanism when accessing sensitive resources. Authentication step-up is then needed to improve the original authentication strength of those users. This document provides guidelines on step-up of the authentication component. It covers requirements and implementation recommendations, describes a proposed authentication step-up model, and outlines related work and documentation.

Guidelines page

https://aarc-project.eu/guidelines/aarc-g029/

Working docs

Google-Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lQqK9-_DTRwrqeFhiQywQ0iVZindFrK9-Ozx9eY0ols

Final Documents (MS Word & PDF)

 

 

Meetings schedule and Minutes

DateLocationAgendaMinutes
2017-07-17-11 13-00 (CEST)https://webconf.vc.dfn.de/aarc-jra1

Discuss documents A, B, C:

  • Table of Contents
  • Key points to mention
We essentially worked inside the documents. Minutes do not make sense at this point
2017-07-28 13:00 (CEST)https://webconf.vc.dfn.de/aarc-jra1Discussion of documents A, B, C

Decided to prioritise document C

Introduced June from RZG, who is liasing for Geant to consume results of our document

Document responsibility handed to Uros,

Finalise Intro: Marcus

2017-11-07 10:00 (CET)

Agreed from now on to use Vidyo room:

https://www.nikhef.nl/grid/video/?m=aarcjra1


Doc discussion

Short review of the doc, and discussion about the future steps.

Discussion about the possible implementations of the step-up:

From the SP point of view, there are 3 use cases:

  • First, if the SP requires having MFA (or step-up of other components), then all IdPs which users are accessing this service need to support and provide MFA, which may be difficult to achieve
  • Second, the SP itself may implement MFA functionality (the actual implementation of this use case was not elaborated at this point)
  • Third (most interesting at this point), there can be IdP-proxy that can provide step-up service (e.g. for MFA)

Possible description of the third use case:

  • User authenticates with the SP and establishes a browser session. The SP then can redirect the user to the predefined IdP-proxy service, where the user can then go through the step-up procedure (e.g. perform MFA). After successful performance of the step-up procedure, the user is redirected back to the SP. SP then can grant access to the user.

Future work:

  • Pinging Stefan for SafeShare chapter: Uros
  • Review old comments and try to resolve them: Uros
  • Create initial drawing of the third use case, on lucidchart: Uros
  • For everyone: going through the doc, and fix current issues
2017-12-05 10:00 (CET)https://www.nikhef.nl/grid/video/?m=aarcjra1Discuss evolution of SuA documents

There will be three documents:

  1. Authentication-step-up:
  2. AuthN-freshness-step-up:
  3. General assurance elevation:
  4. Experiences of the pilot...
2018-01-16 10:00 (CET)https://www.nikhef.nl/grid/video/?m=aarcjra1Followup on Step-Up and other documentsWe agreed to put all definitions to the AARC1-JRA1-Terms and definitions google doc at https://docs.google.com/document/d/18AllfUKLi90f1odm6hINkQvRljbFhy9lfkY1M447uBQ
2018-01-30 10:00 (CET)https://www.nikhef.nl/grid/video/?m=aarcjra1Finalise Step-up document

Received various comments from Mikael, Jens and Mischa

Will include step-up flows from a Geant doc of Christos (Second factor authentication component for the Life Science AAI)

Will have Session at TIIME to discuss final document

Marcus will circulate a close-to-final version on Wednesday

2018-02-13 10:00 (CET)https://www.nikhef.nl/grid/video/?m=aarcjra1Finalise Step-up document

Received comments on close-to-final version

Discussed comments

Marcus will circulate a 'pretty-final' (=closer-to-final) version on Wednesday

The call was missing partners from

  • EGI
  • PSNC
    • Surfnet
2018-03-06 10:00 (CET)https://www.nikhef.nl/grid/video/?m=aarcjra1Finalise Step-up document

Move sections 2 and 4 to appendix

Open consultation about the recommendations

2018-03-13 10:00https://www.nikhef.nl/grid/video/?m=aarcjra1Finalise Step-up documentClosed final comments in the document. Document frozen for the internal review at Geant (many thanks!!)
2018-03-20 10:00https://www.nikhef.nl/grid/video/?m=aarcjra1Finalise Step-up document
2018-03-27 10:00https://www.nikhef.nl/grid/video/?m=aarcjra1Information on finalisation processAdditional recommendation regarding the home-IdP to announce his capability to do MFA added to the document.
2018-04-04 10:00https://www.nikhef.nl/grid/video/?m=aarcjra1Information on finalisation process

We had further discussion on the document over easter. In addition to wording, changes were mostly regarding  whether and how the home-IdP announces his MFA capability. This part was moved to conlcusions, because it's not quite clear yet.

We also discussed whether we recommend that IdPs SHOULD  inform whether they have MFA or whether they HAVE TO (in the sense that it would not make much sense otherwise). We agreed on SHOULD.

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