Abstract: Methods for hardening security between web services using protected forwarded access tokens are implemented via systems and devices. User applications receive user tokens with user information from an identity provider and provide the user tokens to first services with data requests. Each first service extracts and transforms a portion of a user token to validate a user token signature, and determines a target service for the data request. The first services acquire actor tokens from the identity provider that uniquely identify the first services using public keys, and then generate authentication tokens, signed with corresponding private keys, that encapsulate the actor tokens and the transformed user tokens. The signed authentication tokens are provided to target services which validate the authentication tokens as well as the encapsulated tokens and their respective signatures. Upon validation, requested data is retrieved and provided back for the user applications from the target services.

Abstract: Methods, systems and computer program products are provided for signing into multiple accounts with a single gesture. Multiple sessions may be generated for multiple user identities based on a single authentication gesture, such as providing a phone number or email and a texted or emailed one-time code or providing a fast online identity (FIDO) key and an unlock gesture. Resources, such as applications, need not, but may be multi-identity aware to support signing into multiple accounts with a single gesture. Users may utilize their multiple identities without any additional sign-ins. Resources or session managers may receive multiple session artifacts concurrently or separately without additional sign-ins. Resources may indicate a capability to receive multiple session artifacts, for example, in registration or call parameters. Multiple identities may be revealed only after verification, for example, to prevent divulging identities to third parties aware of usernames such as phone numbers and email addresses.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatuses in a computing device enable user access to a resource. The method includes receiving, from a user, a request for access to a resource; accessing an authentication flow for granting access to the resource; obtaining first claims for a user from a first claims provider in the authentication flow; determining a second claims provider in the authentication flow, the second claims provider having a trust relationship with the claims facilitator; directing the user to the second claims provider; receiving second claims for the user from the second claims provider; and enabling the user to access the resource in response to at least the received first and second claims.

Abstract: Methods for hardening security between web services using protected forwarded access tokens are implemented via systems and devices. User applications receive user tokens with user information from an identity provider and provide the user tokens to first services with data requests. Each first service extracts and transforms a portion of a user token to validate a user token signature, and determines a target service for the data request. The first services acquire actor tokens from the identity provider that uniquely identify the first services using public keys, and then generate authentication tokens, signed with corresponding private keys, that encapsulate the actor tokens and the transformed user tokens. The signed authentication tokens are provided to target services which validate the authentication tokens as well as the encapsulated tokens and their respective signatures. Upon validation, requested data is retrieved and provided back for the user applications from the target services.

Abstract: The automatic selection of an identity provider to be used to authenticate users when requesting to access network resources for a tenant. The authentication is initiated by checking the username against the directory of the tenant. If that check results in finding an entry for the username in that directory, the entry is checked for an identity provider. If that check results in finding an identity provider, the user is directed to that found identity provider for authentication. Thus, in many, most, or all cases, an identity provider is found and selected for authentication of the user without the user having to manually select the identity provider. The username may be an internal user of an entity. The selection of the identity provider works in either case since there would still be an entry for that user in the directory of the tenant.

Abstract: The automatic selection of an identity provider to be used to authenticate users when requesting to access network resources for a tenant. The authentication is initiated by checking the username against the directory of the tenant. If that check results in finding an entry for the username in that directory, the entry is checked for an identity provider. If that check results in finding an identity provider, the user is directed to that found identity provider for authentication. Thus, in many, most, or all cases, an identity provider is found and selected for authentication of the user without the user having to manually select the identity provider. The username may be an internal user of an entity. The selection of the identity provider works in either case since there would still be an entry for that user in the directory of the tenant.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatuses in a computing device enable user access to a resource. The method includes receiving, from a user, a request for access to a resource; accessing an authentication flow for granting access to the resource; obtaining first claims for a user from a first claims provider in the authentication flow; determining a second claims provider in the authentication flow, the second claims provider having a trust relationship with the claims facilitator; directing the user to the second claims provider; receiving second claims for the user from the second claims provider; and enabling the user to access the resource in response to at least the received first and second claims.

Abstract: Bulk joining of computing devices to an identity service is performed in two parts. In the first part, a user of a token retrieval device provides credentials to an identity service, which verifies the credentials and provides to the token retrieval device a bulk token for joining the service. In the second part, the bulk token obtained from the identity service is provided to each computing device in a group of multiple computing devices that are to join the identity service. Each computing device in the group of computing devices communicates with the identity service to join the identity service using the bulk token. The bulk token can be provided to each of the multiple computing devices in the group as part of a provisioning package that includes additional configuration information to be used to configure the computing devices in the group.

Abstract: Embodiments of authenticating linked accounts are presented herein. In an implementation, an authentication service provides functionality to form links between a plurality of user accounts. A client may then authenticate by providing credentials for one account in a group of linked accounts, and is permitted access to each account in the group of linked accounts based upon the linking. Thus, a single sign-in of a client to one account may permit the client to obtain services for service providers corresponding to multiple linked accounts, without an individual sign-in to each account.

Abstract: Scalable session management is achieved by generating a cookie that includes an encrypted session key and encrypted cookie data. The cookie data is encrypted using the session key. The session key is then signed and encrypted using one or more public/private key pairs. The encrypted session key can be decrypted and verified using the same private/public key pair(s). Once verified, the decrypted session key can then be used to decrypt and verify the encrypted cookie data. A first server having the private/public key pair(s) may generate the cookie using a randomly generated session key. A second server having the same private/public key pair(s) may decrypt and verify the cookie even if the session key is not initially installed on the second server. A session key cache may be used to provide session key lookup to save public/private key operations on the servers.

Abstract: Authentication is widely used to protect consumer data and computing services, such as email, document storage, and online banking. Current authentication models, such as those employed by online identity providers, may have limited options and configurations for authentication schemes. Accordingly, as provided herein, a model based authentication scheme may be configured based upon a policy and/or an authentication mechanism list. The policy may define the target resource, a user, a group the user belongs to, devices used to connect to the target resource, a service owning the target resource, etc. The authentication mechanism list may comprise predefined authentication mechanisms and/or user plug-in authentication mechanisms (e.g., user created authentication mechanism). Once the authentication scheme is configured, it may be enforced upon authentication requests from a user. Feedback may be provided to the user based upon patterns of usage of the target resource.

Abstract: A federated realm discovery system within a federation determines a “home” realm associated with a portion of the user's credentials before the user's secret information (such as a password) is passed to a non-home realm. A login user interface accepts a user identifier and, based on the user identifier, can use various methods to identify an account authority service within the federation that can authenticate the user. In one method, a realm list of the user device can be used to direct the login to the appropriate home realm of the user. In another method, an account authority service in a non-home realm can look up the user's home realm and provide realm information directing the user device to login at the home realm.

Abstract: Embodiments of authenticating linked accounts are presented herein. In an implementation, an authentication service provides functionality to form links between a plurality of user accounts. A client may then authenticate by providing credentials for one account in a group of linked accounts, and is permitted access to each account in the group of linked accounts based upon the linking. Thus, a single sign-in of a client to one account may permit the client to obtain services for service providers corresponding to multiple linked accounts, without an individual sign-in to each account.

Abstract: Techniques to provide evidence-based dynamic scoring to limit guesses in knowledge based authentication are disclosed herein. In some aspects, an authenticator may receive an input from a user in response to a presentation of a personal question that enables user access to a restricted resource. The authenticator may determine that the input is not equivalent to a stored value, and thus is an incorrect input. The authenticator may then determine whether the input is similar to a previous input received from the user. A score may be assigned to the input. When the input is determined to be similar to the previous input, the score may be reduced. Another request for an input may be transmitted by the authenticator when a sum of the score and any previous scores of the session is less than a threshold.

Abstract: Embodiments of authenticating linked accounts are presented herein. In an implementation, an authentication service provides functionality to form links between a plurality of user accounts. A client may then authenticate by providing credentials for one account in a group of linked accounts, and is permitted access to each account in the group of linked accounts based upon the linking. Thus, a single sign-in of a client to one account may permit the client to obtain services for service providers corresponding to multiple linked accounts, without an individual sign-in to each account.

Abstract: Systems, computer-implemented methods, and computer-readable media for establishing an online account with a resource provider are provided. An authentication token including identification of a user from an authentication server is received. The identification of the user from the authentication token is utilized to establish an online account for the user with the resource provider. Additional credentialing information from the user for the online account is received. The additional information received from the user is associated with the online account for the user with the resource provider.

Abstract: Scalable session management is achieved by generating a cookie that includes an encrypted session key and encrypted cookie data. The cookie data is encrypted using the session key. The session key is then signed and encrypted using one or more public/private key pairs. The encrypted session key can be decrypted and verified using the same private/public key pair(s). Once verified, the decrypted session key can then be used to decrypt and verify the encrypted cookie data. A first server having the private/public key pair(s) may generate the cookie using a randomly generated session key. A second server having the same private/public key pair(s) may decrypt and verify the cookie even if the session key is not initially installed on the second server. A session key cache may be used to provide session key lookup to save public/private key operations on the servers.

Abstract: A federated realm discovery system within a federation determines a “home” realm associated with a portion of the user's credentials before the user's secret information (such as a password) is passed to a non-home realm. A login user interface accepts a user identifier and, based on the user identifier, can use various methods to identify an account authority service within the federation that can authenticate the user. In one method, a realm list of the user device can be used to direct the login to the appropriate home realm of the user. In another method, an account authority service in a non-home realm can look up the user's home realm and provide realm information directing the user device to login at the home realm.

Abstract: Techniques for mixed-mode authentication are described. In one or more embodiments, an authentication service may be implemented to selectively configure and issue authentication tokens based upon an optional secure mode that enables enhanced security. Clients may be provided with an option to choose between an insecure mode and a secure mode for authentications. Based on this choice, tokens may be configured to include an indication of whether the secure mode is disabled or enabled. When secure mode is disabled, an insecure token valid for both secure sites and other sites is issued to a client when the client is authenticated. When the optional secure mode is enabled, both secure and insecure tokens are provided to the client. The authentication services and/or other services may be configured to reject an insecure token when secure mode is enabled to prevent unauthorized use of a stolen token to access secure resources.

Abstract: Computer-readable media, systems, and methods for encrypting communications between a client and an online service provider to ensure the communications are secure. In embodiments an authentication request is received from a user agent associated with the client and the authentication request includes identification information and authentication information. Additionally, it is determined that the identification and authentication information are associated with a user. An authentication ticket is created that includes a user identification and an authentication and indicates to the online service provider that the user is authenticated to access one or more services. Further, a session key is generated and an encrypted session key is embedded into the authentication ticket. The session key is encrypted and the private key is known only to the online service provider and the public key is known at least by an authentication server.