Strong Authentication for Everyone

Spreker: Joost van Dijk (SurfNet)

Abstract

Not a day goes by without news about online security breaches, usually involving user's password credentials being compromised. The obvious solution for improving the situation is the introduction of strong authentication, involving not just something the user knows (a password) but also something the user has (e.g. a mobile phone or some sort of token). The uptake of strong authentication in the research and education community has been slow. There are many reasons for this, but the most important one seems to be the complexity of deploying strong authentication in heterogeneous user groups (which in our case include students, staff, researchers, etc.). Our approach for dealing with this is by introducing what we call "Step-up Authentication-as-a-Service" into our identity federation, SURFconext. This service will allow users to register means for strong authentication without the burden for campuses of having to deploy strong authentication campus-wide. We believe this service will be of great benefit to both campus identity providers as well as to service providers requiring stronger forms of authentication. Moreover, our solution is also applicable outside the higher education and research domain, enabling strong authentication to arbitrary user communities. In this session, we will present on several aspects of our Step-up Authentication-as-a-Service solution, in particular its architecture, user experience, and identity assurance.

Biografie

Joost van Dijk is employed by SURFnet to work on projects in the area of Identity Management and Identity Federations. He is one of the designers of tiqr, SURFnet's mobile authentication app, and he is work item leader for Scalable 2-factor Authentication in the TERENA task force for Mobility and Network Middleware.