Confidence-based authentication discovery for an outbound proxy

• US 9,246,907 B2
• Filed: 07/12/2012
• Issued: 01/26/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 07/12/2012
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Canning, Simon Gilbert, Gee, Simon Winston, Weeden, Shane Bradley
• Primary Examiner(s): Tolentino, Roderick
• Application Number:
  US13/547,750
• Publication Number:
  US 20140020078A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,293 Days
• Field of Search: 726 1- 6, 726 26- 30
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0281 Proxies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0815 providing single-sign-on or federations
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0884 by delegation of authentication, e.g. a proxy authenticates an entity to be authenticated on behalf of this entity vis-à-vis an authentication entity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/20 for managing network security; network security policies in general filtering policies H04L63/0227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/321 involving a third party or a trusted authority

Abstract

A confidence-based authentication discovery scheme is implemented at a proxy. The scheme assumes that some level of unauthenticated browsing is allowed prior to enforcing authentication at the proxy. Once a known and trusted set of identity providers has been accessed and the user is required to authenticate at the proxy (e.g., as a result of policy), the proxy initiates Federated Single Sign-On (F-SSO) to one or more (or, preferably, all) known sites accessed by the browser. This F-SSO operation is performed seamlessly, preferably without the user'"'"'s knowledge (after the user allows an initial trust decision between the proxy acting as a service provider and the external identity provider). The proxy collates the results and, based on the trust it has with those sites, produces a confidence score. That score is then used as input into policy around whether or not a user should be permitted to access a particular site.

Claims

1. A method of controlling access to a protected resource, comprising:

receiving a request to access a protected resource from a user not currently authenticated to access the protected resource;

in response, and without additional user input, performing a confidence-based authentication discovery operation having the following sub-steps;

initiating federated single sign-on (F-SSO) flow to each of one or more known and trusted identity providers with whom the user has previously authenticated;

receiving results from the one or more F-SSO flows, each result indicating whether an identity of the user as asserted in the F-SSO flow is recognized by the identity provider with whom the user has previously authenticated; and

analyzing information returned in the results from the one or more F-SSO flows to determine, based on generating a confidence score that an identity of the user matches an identity of a user that has previously authenticated to two or more known and trusted identity providers, whether the user is permitted to access the protected resource without authenticating using additional user input; and

permitting access to the protected resource without authenticating using additional user input based on the confidence score;

wherein at least one of the receiving, initiating, analyzing and permitting steps is carried out in software executing in a hardware element.

2. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the analyzing step further includes:

applying a policy to the confidence score.

3. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the F-SSO flow is initiated by returning a markup language element to a browser from the request originates.

4. The method as described in claim 3 wherein the markup language element is an HTML iframe.

5. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the confidence-based authentication discovery operation maintains information about each of the one or more known and trusted identity providers with whom the user has previously authenticated.

6. The method as described in claim 5 wherein the information includes an IP/MAC address combination associated with a browser instance from which the user has been previously authenticated.

7. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the results returned from an F-SSO flow include an identity of the user.

8. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the confidence score is generated by applying a combinatorial function to the information returned in the results from the F-SSO flows.

9. The method as described in claim 8 wherein the combinatorial function augments a determined confidence level with an attribute value returned from one of the known and trusted identity providers.

10. Apparatus to control access to a protected resource, comprising:

a processor;

computer memory holding computer program instructions executed by the processor to;

receive a request to access a protected resource from a user not currently authenticated to access the protected resource;

in response, and without additional user input, perform a confidence-based authentication discovery operation by;

initiating a federated single sign-on (F-SSO) flow to each of one or more known and trusted identity providers with whom the user has previously authenticated;

receiving results from the one or more F-SSO flows, each result indicating whether an identity of the user as asserted in the F-SSO flow is recognized by the identity provider with whom the user has previously authenticated; and

analyzing information returned in the results from the one or more F-SSO flows to determine, based on generating a confidence score that an identity of the user matches an identity of a user that has previously authenticated to two or more known and trusted identity providers, whether the user is permitted to access the protected resource without authenticating using additional user input; and

permit access to the protected resource without authenticating using additional user input based on the confidence score.

11. The apparatus as described in claim 10 wherein the analyzing step further includes:

applying a policy to the confidence score.

12. The apparatus as described in claim 10 wherein the F-SSO flow is initiated by returning a markup language element to a browser from the request originates.

13. The apparatus as described in claim 12 wherein the markup language element is an HTML iframe.

14. The apparatus as described in claim 10 wherein the confidence-based authentication discovery operation further includes maintaining information about each of the one or more known and trusted identity providers with whom the user has previously authenticated.

15. The apparatus as described in claim 14 wherein the information includes an IP/MAC address combination associated with a browser instance from which the user has been previously authenticated.

16. The apparatus as described in claim 10 wherein the results returned from an F-SSO flow include an identity of the user.

24. The apparatus as described in claim 10 wherein the confidence score is generated by applying a combinatorial function to the information returned in the results from the F-SSO flows.

25. The apparatus as described in claim 24 wherein the combinatorial function augments a determined confidence level with an attribute value returned from one of the known and trusted identity providers.

17. A computer program product in a non-transitory computer readable medium for use in a data processing system to control access to a resource, the computer program product holding computer program instructions which, when executed by the data processing system, perform a method comprising:

receiving a request to access a protected resource from a user not currently authenticated to access the protected resource;

in response, and without additional user input, performing a confidence-based authentication discovery operation having the following sub-steps;

initiating a federated single sign-on (F-SSO) flow to each of one or more known and trusted identity providers with whom the user has previously authenticated;

receiving results from the one or more F-SSO flows, each result indicating whether an identity of the user as asserted in the F-SSO flow is recognized by the identity provider with whom the user has previously authenticated; and

analyzing information returned in the results from the one or more F-SSO flows to determine, based on generating a confidence score that an identity of the user matches an identity of a user that has previously authenticated to two or more known and trusted identity providers, whether the user is permitted to access the protected resource without authenticating using additional user input; and

permitting access to the protected resource without authenticating using additional user input based on the confidence score.

18. The computer program product as described in claim 17 wherein the analyzing step further includes:

applying a policy to the confidence score.

19. The computer program product as described in claim 17 wherein the F-SSO flow is initiated by returning a markup language element to a browser from the request originates.

20. The computer program product as described in claim 19 wherein the markup language element is an HTML iframe.

21. The computer program product as described in claim 17 wherein the confidence-based authentication discovery operation further includes maintaining information about each of the one or more known and trusted identity providers with whom the user has previously authenticated.

22. The computer program product as described in claim 21 wherein the information includes an IP/MAC address combination associated with a browser instance from which the user has been previously authenticated.

23. The computer program product as described in claim 17 wherein the results returned from an F-SSO flow include an identity of the user not currently authenticated.

26. The computer program product as described in claim 17 wherein the confidence score is generated by applying a combinatorial function to the information returned in the results from the F-SSO flows.