IBM Security Verify Access

IBM Security Verify Access (formerly IBM Security Access Manager) provides user-friendly access management and multifactor authentication to help organizations maintain security as they adopt new technologies. It can be configured to act as an identity provider for the IBM Application Gateway (IAG) by:

  1. acting as an OpenID Connect Provider (OP); or
  2. validating OAuth bearer tokens using the OAuth Introspection endpoint.

Generally OIDC is used to protect Web applications and OAuth tokens are used to protect Web APIs.

OpenID Connect

OpenID Connect is a simple identity protocol and open standard that is built using the OAuth 2.0 protocol. It enables client applications to rely on authentication that is performed by an OpenID Connect Provider (OP) to verify the identity of a user. OpenID Connect uses OAuth 2.0 for authentication and authorization, and then builds identities that uniquely identify users.

The IAG provides a native OpenID Connect relying partner (RP) capability that is able to consume an identity token which has been provided by the Security Verify Access OP in order to establish an authenticated session.

Authentication Flows

The OIDC specification states that authentication can follow one of three paths: the Authorization Code Flow, the Implicit Flow, or the Hybrid Flow. The flow determines how the ID Token and Access Token are returned to the Client. The Authorization Code Flow and the Implicit Flow are described below (please note that the IAG does not support the Hybrid Flow).

The Authorization Code flow is the default and recommended flow for the IAG, but it does require direct connectivity from the IAG container to the Security Verify Access OP. If direct connectivity is not possible the Implicit Flow may be used - although this flow is not recommended and is now considered a security best practices anti-pattern. There are two subtle variations to the Implicit flow, differentiated by the originator of the self-posting form (this form is used to POST the authentication tokens to the RP):

  1. The 'fragment' sub-flow uses a self-posting form which is served from the IAG container;
  2. The 'form-post' sub-flow uses a self-posting form which is returned from the Security Verify Access OP as a result of the authentication process.