System and method for embedded authentication

• US 8,893,251 B2
• Filed: 07/29/2013
• Issued: 11/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Duo Security Incorporated (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Oberheide, Jon, Song, Douglas, Goodman, Adam
• Primary Examiner(s): Chen, Shin-Hon
• Application Number:
  US13/953,343
• Publication Number:
  US 20130312078A1
• Time in Patent Office: 477 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 726/9
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/335 for accessing specific resources, e.g. using Kerberos tickets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0272 Virtual private networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0807 using tickets, e.g. Kerberos cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication using tickets or tokens H04L9/3213
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0853 using an additional device, e.g. smartcard, SIM or a different communication terminal cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving additional secure or trusted devices H04L9/3234

Abstract

Various systems and methods of embedded authentication are described herein. One method of the preferred embodiment can include receiving at an authentication server a transaction token from a host website, the host website including an embeddable interface and prompting a user challenge by the authentication server at the embeddable interface. The method of the preferred embodiment can also include creating a signed authentication token in response to a successful user challenge, and transmitting the signed authentication token from the authentication server to the embeddable interface.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

initiating an authentication session of a host application with an embeddable authentication interface and obtaining a transaction token;

delivering the transaction token to the embeddable authentication interface of the host application;

receiving a signed authentication token at a host server, wherein the signed authentication token is authenticated in a layer of authentication by an authentication server in response to a user challenge delivered by the authentication server to the embeddable authentication interface and in response to authentication of the transaction token delivered to the embeddable authentication interface;

verifying the signed authentication token at the host server; and

if the authentication token is successfully verified, setting an application-level state of a successful authentication.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising at the embeddable authentication interface, transmitting the authentication to the authentication server, and wherein receiving a signed authentication token at the host server comprises at the embeddable authentication interface receiving the authentication token from the authentication server and passing the authentication token to the host server.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the host application is a website responsive to the host server.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the embeddable authentication interface is an embeddable HTML block element.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the embeddable interface comprises an iframe within a webpage.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein initiating an authentication session of a host application comprises providing an initial layer of user credential authentication, wherein the credentials comprises a user name and password.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the transaction token comprises a signed transaction token.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the transaction token comprises a signed cookie.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the user challenge comprises a secondary message transmitted to the embeddable interface.

10. A method comprising:

at an authentication server, receiving a transaction token from an embedded authentication interface in a host application;

at the authentication server, authenticating the transaction token to be a transaction token from a host server;

prompting a user challenge of an embedded layer of authentication at the embeddable interface and initiated by the authentication server;

in response to a successful user challenge and an authentic transaction token, creating a signed authentication token; and

transmitting the signed authentication token from the authentication server to the embeddable interface.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the embeddable interface comprises an embeddable HTML block element.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the transaction token comprises a signed transaction token.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the user challenge comprises a secondary message transmitted to the embeddable interface.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the user challenge comprises user selection from the set including a voice call, an SMS message, an MMS message, a fax message, an instant message, an email, a security question, a push notification, a one-time password, or identification of an authentication agent.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the user challenge comprises verifying device-based credentials of a device used by the user.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the user challenge is a one-time password synchronized with the authentication server.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein the user challenge is hardware device verification.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the hardware device verification comprises communicating with an outside hardware device.

19. The method of claim 10, wherein the signed authentication token comprises a signed authentication token.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein verifying the signed authentication token between the authentication server and the VPN system comprises returning the signed authentication token from the VPN system to the authentication server such that the authentication server can perform verification.

21. The method of claim 10, further comprising in response to an unsuccessful user challenge, transmitting an alternative message to the embeddable interface for delivery to a host server.

22. A method comprising:

at an authentication server, receiving an authentication session initialization request from an embeddable interface, wherein the authentication session initialization request is generated by a virtual private network (VPN) access;

authenticating the authentication session initialization request at the authentication server;

prompting a user challenge of an embedded layer of authentication by the authentication server at the embeddable interface;

in response to a successful user challenge, creating a signed authentication token; and

verifying the signed authentication token between the authentication server and a VPN system.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the embeddable interface is an embeddable HTML block element.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein the user challenge comprises a secondary message transmitted to the embeddable interface.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the user challenge comprises one of a voice call, an SMS message, an MMS message, a fax message, an instant message, an email, a security question, a push notification, a one-time password, or identification of an authentication agent.

26. The method of claim 22, further comprising in response to an unsuccessful user challenge, transmitting an alternative message to the embeddable interface to deliver to the VPN system.