Systems and methods for extensible, modular, and hierarchical step-up authentication
AssigneeZscaler, Inc.
InventorsRahul Singh, Manish Jasyal, Murtuza Attarwala, Wei Wang
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Systems and methods for a hierarchical step-up authentication mechanism include monitoring access to one or more private applications; responsive to a request to access the one or more private applications, determining an Authentication Level (AL) of a user associated with the request, wherein determining the AL of the user comprises referencing one or more AL trees; and responsive to determining an AL of the user, performing one or more actions based thereon, wherein the one or more actions comprises one of allowing access to the one or more private applications and denying access to the one or more private applications.
Claims20
A method comprising steps of:
- monitoring access to one or more private applications;
- responsive to a request to access the one or more private applications, determining an Authentication Level (AL) of a user associated with the request, wherein determining the AL of the user comprises referencing one or more AL trees, each of the one or more AL trees comprising a plurality of ALs arranged in a parent-child hierarchy, each AL of the plurality of ALs representing an authentication strength tier for authentication of the user, wherein a parent AL in the parent-child hierarchy represents a higher authentication strength tier than any child AL descending therefrom, and wherein the user having authenticated to a given AL is granted access commensurate with the given AL and each child AL descending from the given AL;
- and
- responsive to determining an AL of the user, performing one or more actions based thereon, wherein the one or more actions comprises one of allowing access to the one or more private applications and denying access to the one or more private applications.
A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to perform steps of:
- monitoring access to one or more private applications;
- responsive to a request to access the one or more private applications, determining an Authentication Level (AL) of a user associated with the request, wherein determining the AL of the user comprises referencing one or more AL trees, each of the one or more AL trees comprising a plurality of ALs arranged in a parent-child hierarchy, each AL of the plurality of ALs representing an authentication strength tier for authentication of the user, wherein a parent AL in the parent-child hierarchy represents a higher authentication strength tier than any child AL descending therefrom, and wherein the user having authenticated to a given AL is granted access commensurate with the given AL and each child AL descending from the given AL;
- and
- responsive to determining an AL of the user, performing one or more actions based thereon, wherein the one or more actions comprises one of allowing access to the one or more private applications and denying access to the one or more private applications.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.