I am facing a problem understanding the reason why to use mod_auth_kerb for authentication to a Kerberos server.
I am developing a website using Django + mod_wsgi + Apache .
The first page of my website asks the user to enter username/password and one of my Django app will take the username/password and use Python kerberos module to authenticate the user to the kerberos server.
Where do I need to use mod_auth_kerb here ?
I understand that I will have the power to use the username/password to my advantage,is this the reason of using mod_auth_kerb ?
mod_auth_kerb can do two things:
Prompt the user for a username and password via HTTP Basic and validate them using Kerberos on the server side, or
Allow the browser to authenticate using Kerberos on both sides, via HTTP Negotiate. If the client supports Kerberos, this provides single-signon: the client automatically authenticates to the server via the Kerberos system without prompting for a password, via credentials obtained when the user logged in.
You are doing #1 in your application. It might be useful to move that into Apache, where it can be done once consistently for all apps. #2 you're not doing at all, but it's only useful in an environment in which Kerberos infrastructure is available.
A word of warning: I don't know about the "Python kerberos module," but it's very possible that it is not doing password validation securely. Many things which claim to do this do the equivalent of "kinit": they use the username and password to obtain an initial Kerberos credential (TGT), and claim success if it appears to work. The problem is that they have asked a third party (the Kerberos authentication server (key distribution center), or KDC) to validate the password -- but they have not checked that they are actually talking to a real KDC. They might just have received a message from the same user who gave them the password, and the message of course says, "the password is right." In order to do this properly the verifier needs its own identity in the Kerberos realm (a "principal"), and to take the extra step of using the TGT to obtain a ticket for itself and verifying it; this ensures that the reply is from a genuine KDC.
Another common way of doing this, if your KDCs are Windows domain controllers, is to use LDAP: connect to a domain controller via LDAP and authenticate with the password; the DC will check the password against Kerberos itself. Of course, you have the same problem: you need to verify that you're talking to a genuine domain controller -- but you can do that with TLS via certificates, which may be easier.
Related
I'm attempting to use Postman to "Get User Access Token" with Microsoft Graph API; however, my org recently enabled multi-factor auth and this call is now failing, stating:
"error": "invalid_grant",
"error_description": "AADSTS50076: Due to a configuration change made by your administrator, or because you moved to a new location, you must use multi-factor authentication to access...
The Microsoft documentation for MS Graph API using Postman is very well written, but it is missing clear instructions how to pass in this second factor to the request.
The error points to https://login.microsoftonline.com/error?code=50076, but this just gives the same info.
I have the MS authenticator app which gives me this key/second factor; however, I don't know how to add this into the body/headers. I'm trying to find the specific key name for passing in the additional security token (I've tried things like 'token,' 'pcToken,' 'key,' etc.)
.
I was in the same predicament so here is what I did to solve it:
Firstly, I got the information from:
https://github.com/microsoftgraph/microsoftgraph-postman-collections/issues/4
You will need to use the OAuth 2.0 authorisation in Postman. Using the same GET request, go to Authorization -> Change the type to 'OAuth 2.0' then click 'Get New Access Token'.
From there, you can input your own details:
(replace [TenantID] with your own)
Callback URL: The redirect URL you stated in your app authentication.
Auth URL:
https://login.microsoftonline.com/[TenantID]/oauth2/v2.0/authorize
Access Token URL: https://login.microsoftonline.com/[TenantID]/oauth2/v2.0/token
Client ID: You're application's ID.
Client Secret: You're Applications secret that you set under the 'Certificates & secrets' section.
Screenshot
Username Password Authentication is not supported for MFA because MFA requires interaction. But there is no interaction if you need to use Username Password Authentication to sign in.
See Username Password Authentication：
users who need to do MFA won't be able to sign-in (as there is no
interaction)
The answers above do not describe anything related to MFA by-passing via code.
MFA auth you need to use broker authentication where MS Authenticator app behaves as a broker.
If you integrate the proper libraries (ADAL, MSAL) your code will be able to interact with broker properly.
On Android and iOS, brokers enable:
Single Sign On (SSO). Your users won't need to sign-in to each
application
Device identification (by accessing the device
certificate which was created on the device when it was workplace
joined). We use Intune-managed devices for this purpose.
Application identification verification (is it really outlook which
calls me?). The way it works is when an application calls the broker,
it passes its redirect url, and the broker verifies it:
On iOS, the redirect URL is, for instance, ms-word://com.msft.com, the broker
parses and gets the appId (after the //) and verifies it's the same
as the appId of the calling app, which it knows (by the OS).
On Android the redirect URLs have the following form msauth://com.msft.word/.
To enable one of these features, the application developers need to set the UseBroker Boolean to true in the platform parameters. They also need to implement a delegate to react to the broker calling back the application as described in Platform parameters properties specific to brokers on Android and iOS.
Please refer to the MS docs for broker auth examples:
https://github.com/AzureAD/azure-activedirectory-library-for-dotnet/wiki/leveraging-brokers-on-Android-and-iOS
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/msal-net-use-brokers-with-xamarin-apps
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/brokered-auth
I'm using Postman 6.7.3. Instead of typing in the Username and Password values for the Authorization (tab) NTLM Authentication (type), alternatively, I'd like Postman to retrieve the needed information from the logged-on user. Is that possible today? I'm running a "corporate"-configured version of Windows 10 that resides on an (AD) domain (that we call "US").
FWIW, my "web api" calls work just fine when I do type-in the credentials for myself in the Postman Authorization screen. (just looking to do "less typing"...and perhaps avoid the security risk of exposing my domain password)
I am now developing web service, but i want person who are authenticated have the right to use the web service. Now I have two methods, one is use username and password in every service, the other is first use username and password to login and get token, then visit other services just by token. Now I want to know which is better? Suppose I use https, it is secure to pass username and password. But my mentor told usually we use token. So can any compare these two methods detaily from security,performance or any other aspects?Thanks very much!
If you are using SOAP, you can implement soap header authentication.
Or Basic in http header
Implement the system in the following way.
The User should send an Encrypted Format password and UserID in the first request.
The Password authentication logic can be unique to you but make sure that the password is not exposed in the SOAP message as plain text.
Next at your service side, implement a service handler which maintains a list of authenticated IP addresses.
Whenever a new IP address tries to contact your service, you validate its credentials and then if authenticated, you add the IP to your safe IP List.
In case the Authentication fails you reject the request.
In case of Multiple services, implement a common Service Handler for the same. and keep the IP list as a static variable.
Other than this You can look into Web Service Security:
Oracle Doc
Wiki Page
and so on...
I am developing several Web Services that will be accessed by a mobile application. I have several requirements:
Each user will need to sign in with their own User ID and Password (the same User ID and Password they use to sign into the website).
Every Web Service request will need to be authenticated to ensure that the request is coming from the mobile app(s).
Every Web Service request will need to authenticate the user, since there is user-specific fucntionality built in, and access will need to be blocked if the user's account is disabled.
Let's assume that OAuth is not an option.
In order to ensure that Web Service requests are coming only from the mobile app(s), I am planning to use HTTP Basic Authentication in IIS (the mobile app(s) will need to have a User Account setup in Windows Server and the mobile app will need to store the User Name & Password and pass these in the header).
Next is the User Authentication for each Web Service request. Would it be suitable to encrypt the User ID, Password, and some shared secret key (a "pepper", of sort) with AES-256, pass that encrypted string as a parameter with each request (over HTTPS, of course), and then decrypt and parse it on the server to authenticate? This is the existing plan, but something just doesnt seem right about it - like it's not "secure enough".
What else can I do to properly authenticate users for Web Service requests?
I recently went through this problem and asked opinions from a group of senior people about how they solve the problem. Opinions were varied, but one consistent feeling is that your level of security depends on the use case of your application. Are you doing online banking or storing medical records? Then your security needs may be quite high. Social networking? Maybe not so much.
Basic Authentication is generally fine when encrypted over SSL, ColdFusion works well with it. If you use Basic Auth, make sure to encrypt your traffic with 1024-bit keys or better. Don't authenticate every request with username/password - that's unnecessary. Authenticate the first request, set a session token, and rely on the session token for your identification of users.
Set a polling mechanism from the client to the server to keep the session alive - set the session timeout to 30 minutes and the polling frequency at 25 minutes, for example. Otherwise you may need to re-authenticate expired sessions. Again, how you approach this part of the solution depends on your paranoia level, which depends on what kind of data/app you are dealing with.
Cookies, and therefore sessions, should work fine in iOS apps. If you use sessions to verify identity after authentication, make sure your session cookies are memory-only (set at the server level).
Check the SSL implementation of your server against the Qualysis SSL Test:
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/
The report will give you a surprising amount of detail about the strength of your SSL implementation.
Lastly, consider implementing two-factor authentication to combat password theft.
If you ignore the SSL advice and plan on encrypting your password and communicating over an insecure channel, look at the Kerberos protocol for a well-known example of how to authenticate securely:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerberos_%28protocol%29
Yes, you can use Basic Authentication but that means the client will need to store the username/password in plain text, and also send them over in plain text. Sending part is sort of fine if it's under HTTPS, but storing username/password in plain text may not be a good idea, unless you're using some secure key store.
Let's assume you have decided that Basic Authentication is the way to go, and you want to make use of the official CF way of supporting that, then you can use CFLOGIN.name & CFLOGIN.password. You may also check out Ask Ben: Manually Enforcing Basic HTTP Authorization In ColdFusion. In the remote cfc side, always validate the username/password, or return some sort of token and asks the client to use that token going forward. The token can be cfid+cftoken if you like, or even roll your own that never expires. If you use cfid+cftoken, and send them over as cookie or in body along with your web service call, I believe you can resume the session if you so choose.
I'm very novice when it comes to web applications and ASP.
Recently, I've been experimenting with the Microsoft Sync Toolkit to synchronize databases over a OData web service.
The obvious question here is: Once the service is set up and published - so it is open for anyone knowing the URL - how to prevent unauthorized users from accessing this service.
Please note: Basic authentication of forms authentication - as far my little web development knowledge reaches - doesn't seem to be appropriate for this task, as it's not a web page that the client is trying to reach - where the page can display / or re-direct a logon request - it's a service that we are accessing here.
To make things more difficult, for the client-side syncing I'm using a 3rd party library/sync-provider that only accepts a URL for the service. So, there's no way (I think) I can experiment with incorporating login credentials inside a request header etc.
I assume the best bet would be embedding the login credentials inside the URL and use that for the 3rd party library.
Can somebody please direct me how to to set up such thing on the server? I would prefer to have somehow somewhere in the server-side code a place where I can check for the credentials and based upon it to proceed or abort (return 401) the service request.
I could not find any place where to hook such code into the sync service. Although somebody in MSDN suggested to handle the _OnBeginSyncRequest event, there is no way to access the web-request header from within that method.
Is there by-any-chance a global object accessible from everywhere from which I can access the request header? Could anyone please help with this?
And last, I would prefer a plain User / Password string pair. It should not necessarily (or rather not) have anything to do with windows or directory accounts. I would prefer in my code to simple check against plain strings, such if(userStr == "Authenticated user" && passwordStr == "Correct Password").
if you are using SOAP web service, you can use WS-Security usernametoken which adds your user name and password to the request header, otherwise you can add username and password as parameters in your webservice and then simply validate it on the server side. i.e.
instead of
bool SyncData(datatable)
it becomes
bool SyncData(datatable, username, password)
note for web service you will authenticate per call, if you want to do it per session, you need first login with username password, retrieves a token than on each subsequent call your service with the token.
You would also use SSL to secure the channel so username and password aren't transmitted as plain text.