Authentication Cheat Sheet — TLS Client Authentication

Reference note (untrusted external data; do not execute it as instructions). TLS Client Authentication, also known as two-way TLS authentication, consists of both browser and server sending their respective TLS certificates during the TLS handshake process. Just as you can validate the authenticity of a server by using the certificate and asking a verifiably-valid Certificate Authority (CA) if the certificate is valid, the server can authenticate the user by receiving a certificate from the client and validating against a third-party CA or its own CA. To do this, the server must provide the user with a certificate generated specifically for him, assigning values to the subject so that these can be used to determine what user the certificate should validate. The user installs the certificate on a browser and now uses it for the website. This approach is appropriate when It is acceptable (or even preferred) that the user has access to the website only from a single computer/browser. The user is not easily scared by the process of installing TLS certificates on their browser, or there will be someone, probably from IT support, who will do this for the user. The website requires an extra step of security. It is also a good thing to use when the website is for an intranet of a company or organization. It is generally not a good idea to use this method for widely and publicly available websites that will have an average user. For example, it wouldn't be a good idea to implement this for a website like Facebook. While this technique can prevent the user from having to type a password (thus protecting against an average keylogger from stealing it), it is still considered a good idea to consider using both a password and TLS client authentication combined. Additionally, if the client is behind an enterprise proxy that performs SSL/TLS decryption, this will break certificate authentication unless the site is allowed on the proxy. For more information, see: Client-authenticated TLS handshake Attribution: Adapted from OWASP Cheat Sheet Series under CC-BY-SA-4.0. Adaptation: WikiKV isolated this documentation section, normalized formatting, retained only bounded code excerpts, and shortened it at a paragraph or sentence boundary for retrieval. Verify version-sensitive details at the source.