1. AUTHENTICATION
AS A
SERVICE
by TEAM9 SOLUTIONS

2. OBJECTIVE
 What is Authentication?
 About cloud computing & its services
 Authentication as a service(AaaS)
 Components of AaaS
 Authentication Federation
 Advantages of AaaS
 AaaS Service Providers

3. AUTHENTICATION
 Authentication is the process of identifying a
user
 Authentication lets an entity prove who he/she
claims to be
 Authentication is the process of validating or
confirming that access credentials
 provided by a user (for instance, a user ID and
password) are valid. A user in this case could
be a person, another application, or a service
Authentication does not guarantee
authorization.

4. CLOUD COMPUTING & SERVICE
 Computing resources are provisioned, used and made
available on internet or intranet.
 Cloud computing makes heavy use of Virtualization and
SDN (software defined networking )
 Services that run on top of the cloud computing are
called cloud services.
 Gmail is a very good example of cloud service.

5. AUTHENTICATION AS A SERVICE
(AaaS)
 As online access to services becomes ubiquitous and
the cloud access model gains momentum, authentication
is increasingly becoming a focal point for security
professionals.
 With bank accounts, health records, corporate
intellectual property and politically sensitive information
being just a few clicks away, no matter where in the
world you are ,it is natural to worry about the identity of
those wishing to gain access .This is where
Authentication comes into play

6. AUTHENTICATION AS A SERVICE
(AaaS)
 Authentication server and other resources needed for
authentication are placed on the internet (cloud) and are
used by clients/users that are physically distant.
 The authentication servers and other components are
now on the cloud and not on the server farm of an
enterprise network.
 The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is a non-profit
organization with a mission to promote the use of best
practices for providing security within Cloud Computing,
and to provide education, led by a broad coalition of
industry practitioners, corporations, associations and
other key stakeholders.

7. COMPONENTS OF AaaS
 Cloud Federation: It refers to the unionization of
software, infrastructure and platform services from
different networks that can be accessed by a client via
the internet. It is important to note that federated cloud
computing services still rely on the existence of physical
data centers.
 Service Provider (SP): Provide hosting authentication
service.
 Identity Provider (IdP): An authoritative source of
identity data for users provides the primary
authentication of the user. The Identity Provider can be
the service consumer itself, or external to it.

8. AUTHENTICATION AS A SERVICE
(AaaS)
 AaaS involves Federated Single Sign-On (SSO) using
industry standards such as SAML, OAUTH and OpenID.
 Enables 2 factor strong authentication with convenient
soft OTP token support.

9. AUTHENTICATION FEDERATION

10. ADVANTAGE OF AaaS
 Elastic capability – scale up/down on demand
 Resources are abstracted /virtualized
 Interoperability between different platforms
 High availability
 Secure and reliable ( two factor)
 Pay as you go service or pay per use service (flexible
payment mode)
 Single Sign On ( SSO)

11. AaaS SERVICE PROVIDERS
 Support a wide range of tokens and tokenless
authentication methods allowing each user to choose the
right token type for their individual needs.
 Strong authentication can be provided , standards such
as RADIUS and SAML and the availability of APIs and
agents for other applications.
 We support 3rd party tokens ensuring that existing
investment in tokens is not lost when users migrate to
our solution.
 The comprehensive degree of automation in the solution
drastically reduces the cost of management and
administration.

12. AaaS SERVICE PROVIDERS

13. Conclusion
 Authentication As A Service (AaaS) gives us all the
benefits of cloud computing without worrying about
the security of our personal or business data.
 AaaS also provide the countermeasures against ID
theft, sensitive information like credit card, health
records etc.