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Configure login attempts-based adaptive authentication

This page guides you through configuring login attempts-based adaptive authentication for a sample web application.


Scenario

Consider a scenario where you want a user who successfully logs in after three failed login attempts to perform an additional level of authentication to access a resource.


Prerequisites

  • See the general prerequisites for all adaptive authenticaiton scenarios.
  • You need to set up the sample application.
  • You need to add a user named Alex with login permissions. Do not assign any roles to this user.
  • You need to configure the maximum number of failed attempts allowed.

    1. On the management console, go to Identity > Identity Providers > Resident.
    2. Expand the Login Attempts Security > Account Lock section.
    3. Select Lock user accounts.
    4. Enter a value greater than 3 as the value for Maximum failed login attempts.

    Tip

    The Maximum failed login attempts should be greater than the number of failed login attempts you will consider for prompting two-factor authentication.

    In this sample, since we will prompt two-factor authentication after three failed login attempts, the Maximum failed login attempts should be greater than 3.


Configure login attempts-based authentication

To configure user-age-based authentication:

  1. On the management console, go to Main > Identity > Service Providers > List.

  2. Click Edit on the saml2-web-app-pickup-dispatch.com service provider.

  3. Expand the Local and Outbound Authentication Configuration section and click Advanced Configuration.

  4. You will be redirected to Advanced Configuration, expand Script Based Conditional Authentication.

  5. In the Templates section, click on the + corresponding to the Login-Attempts-Based template.

    Tenant based template

  6. Click Ok to add the authentication script. The authentication script and authentication steps will be configured.

    Info

    • The authentication script defines a conditional step that executes the second authentication step (i.e., hardware key authenticator) only if the user logs in after a specific number of invalid login attempts (defined by the invalidAttemptsToStepup parameter) have been exceeded.
    • By default, TOTP will be added as the second authentication step. You can update this with any authentication method.
  7. Click Update to save your configurations.


Try it out

  1. Access the following sample Pickup Dispatch application URL: http://localhost.com:8080/saml2-web-app-pickup-dispatch.com

  2. Click Login and try to log in using an invalid password (make a failed login attempt).

  3. Next, log in using the correct username and password.

    Info

    Note that the second factor of authentication is not prompted because the number of failed attempts allowed has not been exceeded yet.

  4. Make invalid failed attempts until you exceed the allowed failed attempts.

  5. Now that you have exceeded the number of allowed failed attempts, try to log in with the correct credentials.

  6. You will be prompted to enter your TOTP code. Enter the code and click Sign In.

    TOTP authenticator

Note

The failed login attempts need not be made during a given time frame. Login attempts-based adaptive authentication is valid even if the user makes two login attempts now and the other in a few days before logging in with the correct credentials.

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