Question on Login Handlers

Cantor, Scott cantor.2 at osu.edu
Thu Aug 22 19:43:24 EDT 2013


On 8/22/13 6:52 PM, "Brewer, Edward L" <lee.brewer at Vanderbilt.Edu> wrote:

>David,
> 
>The case that is cited that is considered the ³scariest² is the following.
> 
>User A is in both LDAP1 and LDAP2Š the data is the same.
>User A is terminatedŠ. Login access to LDAP1 is disabledŠ  user¹s
>information is still there.
> 
>User A logins into an application and is able to auth to LDAP2 and gain
>accessŠ plus since they are in LDAP1 their attributes will be there to
>pass on to the
> app
> 
>So I at least need a way of not sending the attribute information from
>LDAP1.

That's what I meant by authn == authz.

The way you're meant to do this is by passing an attribute about their
permissions to the various systems, affiliation or entitlements or
something else, but not by excluding information to simulate a lack of
access.

Essentially you have apps that apparently don't do any authz, and now are
being told to fix that for them, when in reality it's likely they don't
even agree with your central IT's concerns about access or that people in
the LDAP2 case shouldn't have access. But in any case, it's their job to
do authz, not the authentication system's job. And when you try and do it,
you limit your ability to evolve your system, and you end up with policies
that don't actually meet the needs of the apps because they're too broadly
applied, so you end up carving out exceptions.

-- Scott




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