Duo Single Sign-On for Cisco Secure Access

Overview

As business applications move from on-premises to cloud hosted solutions, users experience password fatigue due to disparate logons for different applications. Single sign-on (SSO) technologies seek to unify identities across systems and reduce the number of different credentials a user has to remember or input to gain access to resources.

While SSO is convenient for users, it presents new security challenges. If a user's primary password is compromised, attackers may be able to gain access to multiple resources. In addition, as sensitive information makes its way to cloud-hosted services it is even more important to secure access by implementing two-factor authentication and zero-trust policies.

About Duo Single Sign-On

Duo Single Sign-On is our cloud-hosted SSO product which layers Duo's strong authentication and flexible policy engine on top of Cisco Secure Access logins. Duo Single Sign-On acts as an identity provider (IdP), authenticating your users using existing on-premises Active Directory (AD) or another SSO IdP. Duo SSO prompts users for two-factor authentication and performs endpoint assessment and verification before permitting access to Cisco Secure Access.

Duo Single Sign-On is available in Duo Premier, Duo Advantage, and Duo Essentials plans, which also include the ability to define policies that enforce unique controls for each individual SSO application. For example, you can require that Salesforce users complete two-factor authentication at every login, but only once every seven days when accessing Cisco Secure Access. Duo checks the user, device, and network against an application's policy before allowing access to the application.

Configure Single Sign-On

Before configuring Cisco Secure Access with Duo SSO using Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 authentication you'll first need to enable Duo Single Sign-On for your Duo account and configure a working authentication source.

Once you have your SSO authentication source working, continue to the next step of creating the Cisco Secure Access application in Duo.

Create the Cisco Secure Access Application in Duo

1. Log on to the Duo Admin Panel and navigate to Applications → Protect an Application.

2. Locate the entry for Cisco Secure Access with a protection type of "2FA with SSO hosted by Duo (Single Sign-On)" in the applications list. Click Protect to the far-right to start configuring Cisco Secure Access. See Protecting Applications for more information about protecting applications with Duo and additional application options. You'll need the information on the Cisco Secure Access page under Downloads later.

3. Cisco Secure Access uses the Mail attribute, Username attribute, Display name attribute, First name attribute, and Last name attribute when authenticating. We've mapped the bridge attributes to Duo Single Sign-On supported authentication source attributes as follows:

   Bridge Attribute	Active Directory	SAML IdP
   <Email Address>	mail	Email
   <Username>	sAMAccountName	Username
   <Display Name>	displayName	DisplayName
   <First Name>	givenName	FirstName
   <Last Name>	sn	LastName

   If you are using non-standard attributes for your authentication source, check the Custom attributes box and enter the names of the attributes you wish to use instead.

4. You can adjust additional settings for your new SAML application at this time — like changing the application's name from the default value, enabling self-service, or assigning a group policy.

5. Keep the Duo Admin Panel tab open. You will come back to it later.

Duo Universal Prompt

The Duo Universal Prompt provides a simplified and accessible Duo login experience for web-based applications, offering a redesigned visual interface with security and usability enhancements.

Universal Prompt	Traditional Prompt

The Duo Cisco Secure Access application supports the Universal Prompt by default, so there's no additional action required on your part to start using the newest authentication experience.

Activate Universal Prompt

Activation of the Universal Prompt is a per-application change. Activating it for one application does not change the login experience for your other Duo applications. Universal Prompt is already activated for new Cisco Secure Access applications at creation.

The "Universal Prompt" area of the application details page shows that this application's status is "Activation complete", with these activation control options:

• Show traditional prompt: Your users experience Duo's traditional prompt via redirect when logging in to this application.
• Show new Universal Prompt: (Default) Your users experience the Universal Prompt via redirect when logging in to this application.

The application's Universal Prompt status shows "Activation complete" both here and on the Universal Prompt Update Progress report.

For the time being, you may change this setting to Show traditional prompt to use the legacy experience. Keep in mind that support for the traditional Duo prompt ended for the majority of applications in March 2024. This option will be removed in the future.

Universal Update Progress

Click the See Update Progress link to view the Universal Prompt Update Progress report. This report shows the update availability and migration progress for all your Duo applications. You can also activate the new prompt experience for multiple supported applications from the report page instead of visiting the individual details pages for each application.

Enable Cisco Secure Access for SSO

1. Log into your Cisco Secure Access account as an administrator.

2. At the top of the left menu sidebar, click the menu icon and navigate to Connect → Users and Groups. The "Users and User Groups" page opens.

3. In the upper right corner of the page, click Configuration management. The "Configuration Management" page opens.

4. Click the Configurations tab.

5. In the "SSO authentication" section, click Add SSO authentication. The "Configure SSO Authentication" page opens.

6. Enter a unique name for your authentication into the SSO Authentication Name field.

7. In the "Authentication Method" section, click the Directory drop-down menu and select the directory you want to authenticate.

8. Click Next. The "SAML Provider Authentication" section opens.

9. Click the Select Identity Provider drop-down menu and select Duo Security.

10. Click Next. The "Configuration" section opens.

11. Click Download Service Provider XML file.

12. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Service Provider", click Choose File and open the XML file you downloaded from Cisco Secure Access earlier.

13. In the Duo Admin Panel under "Downloads", click Download XML.

14. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save.

15. Return to the Cisco Secure Access "Configuration" section. Scroll down and click Click or drag a file to this area to upload and open the XML file you downloaded from Duo earlier.

16. Click Done. The "Configuration Management" page opens.

17. In the "SSO authentication" section, click the arrow in your authentication tile to expand the tile.

18. Click Test Configuration to be automatically redirected to Duo to test your configuration.

Learn more about Cisco Secure Access SSO at the Cisco Secure Access Help Center.

Using SSO

To log on to Cisco Secure Access using SSO, open your Cisco Secure Client. In the "Zero Trust Access" tile, click Enroll. Enter your email address and click Continue to be redirected to Duo Single Sign-On to begin authentication.

Active Directory Login

With Active Directory as the Duo SSO authentication source, enter the primary username (email address) on the Duo SSO login page and click or tap Next.

Enter the AD primary password and click or tap Log in to continue.

Enable Duo Passwordless to log in to Duo SSO backed by Active Directory authentication without entering a password in the future.

SAML Login

With another SAML identity provider as the Duo SSO authentication source, Duo SSO immediately redirects the login attempt to that SAML IdP for primary authentication. Users do not see the Duo SSO primary login screen.

Duo Authentication

Successful verification of your primary credentials by Active Directory or a SAML IdP redirects back to Duo. Complete Duo two-factor authentication when prompted and then you'll return to Cisco Secure Access to complete the login process.

* Universal Prompt experience shown.

Cisco Secure Access supports SP-initiated authentication only, meaning that you must start your SSO login from that application's sign-in page. You won't be able to add Cisco Secure Access as an application tile in Duo Central for IdP-initiated logins.

Congratulations! Your Cisco Secure Access users now authenticate using Duo Single Sign-On.

See the full user login experience, including expired password reset (available for Active Directory authentication sources) in the Duo End User Guide for SSO.

Enable Remembered Devices

To minimize additional Duo two-factor prompts when switching between Cisco Secure Access and your other Duo Single Sign-On SAML applications, be sure to apply a shared "Remembered Devices" policy to your SAML applications.

Troubleshooting

Need some help? Try searching our Knowledge Base articles or Community discussions. For further assistance, contact Support.