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About Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)#

Note

You can tailor different aspects of 2FA behavior in Casa using the plugin developed for this purpose.

Availability#

By default, strong (two-factor) authentication will be available to users of Casa once they have added at least two credentials. By requiring users to register two strong credentials, the number of account lockouts that require admin intervention will be greatly reduced. If one credential is lost, there will be at least one fallback mechanism available. Avoiding user lockout is important because it prevents a serious burden for IT administrators.

There is no limit to the number of credentials a user can enroll, and credentials do not need to be of the same type: any combination is valid.

Note

The number of credentials required for two-factor authentication (2FA) can be customized with the Strong authentication settings plugin

Supported types of 2FA#

Users will only be able to add credentials with a type matching one of the already enabled authentication methods in the admin console. See the Admin console page to learn more. Out of the box, all the following authentication methods are supported:

  • FIDO 2 security keys
  • FIDO U2F security keys (browser restrictions may apply, we strongly recommend using FIDO 2 instead)
  • Super Gluu for push notifications
  • HOTP/TOTP apps, cards, "dongles"
  • OTP via SMS (using Twilio or an SMPP server)

Other methods may be supported via plugins.

Resetting a user's 2FA availability#

In the event a user loses access to his account, admins can revert the user's authentication method to "password only" by following the steps shown in the troubleshooting guide.

Associated "strength" of credentials#

When authenticating, a user with 2FA turned on, will be challenged to present the credential matching the "strongest" authentication method. The strength is a numerical value assigned via the "level" property of the custom script that is tied to the authentication method. The higher the value, the stronger it is considered. Thus, if a user has several credentials enrolled, he will be asked to present the one of them having the highest strength associated.

Particularly, if the device used to access is a mobile browser, only the methods listed in the property "mobile_methods" of casa script will be accounted to determine the strongest credential. Admins can modify this property at will if the default value does not meet their expectations.

Note there are ways to override the rule of the "strongest" method; see the docs of the Strong authentication settings plugin.

Forcing users to enroll a specific credential before 2FA is available#

To further reduce the likelihood of lockouts, you can force users to initially enroll, for instance, one OTP credential before any other. OTP credentials are generally more accessible than their counterparts (like Fido 2) since they normally don't demand special conditions from the device used to access, like having a USB port.

To do so, just add a new configuration property named 2fa_requisite to the custom interception script corresponding to the authentication method, and assign true as its value. It may take more than one minute for Casa to pick up the changes. To add the property, open oxTrust web console and navigate to Configuration > Manage custom scripts, collapse the method you want to set as requisite for 2FA, and click on Add new property.

You can flag more than one method as requisite. In this case users will be encouraged to enroll one credential associated to any of the flagged methods.

If you are using an authentication method you added your own (via plugin), ensure the corresponding plugin implements the mayBe2faActivationRequisite method.

If a user attempts to delete their only available credential matching the requisite method, a prompt will appear warning that doing so will disable 2FA, that is, resetting to password authentication.

Enrolling credentials upon registration or first login#

If the previous scenario is not enough for your needs, you can force users to enroll credentials and turn 2FA on before the first usage of the application. This can be done in two ways:

  • Altering the login flow to check for presence of credentials and then redirect to custom pages that implement enrollment
  • Making enrollments occur at registration time (through the application you use for this purpose)

Any of these cases entails a development effort which should leverage the enrollments API available.