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What's New in R82
Q&A is below the video.
Slides are posted at the end.
R&D are improving the integrations with external Identity Sources and Identity Providers and there are many changes coming soon. We will arrange a future session to cover OIDC and others. so we will be arranging a future session to cover OIDC and others.
The default TTL of an Identity Session is 12 hours, not 7 days.
For multi-user hosts, we recommend installing the Multi-User Host agent.
In most environments, Identity Awareness assumes that only one user is logged into a single machine. If another user logs in, or if there is activity under a system account, this can sometimes cause this issue. This can be adjusted per: https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk105889
There are options to ignore service and system accounts so that service account activity doesn't overwrite the Identity Session of the real human user.
Identity Agents all work against Active Directory only at present. Groups are queried via LDAP (usually AD). There are other ways to acquire identities, but only LDAP or SAML can be used to get group information necessary.
Please refer to the following SK for guidance: https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk175587
For centrally managed devices (e.g. with Smart-1 or Smart-1 Cloud), this is supported. For locally managed devices, it is not possible to use Identity Collector at this time.
Depends on the identity source. For Active Directory, we read the security logs using Identity Collector to get the user login information. For Entra ID or other SAML provider, it is read as part of the SAML assertion, which requires the gateway to be inline and be configured with Captive Portal.
There are a couple of ways to achieve this, yes. The first that comes to mind is to use the Captive Portal in Identity Awareness. This would require the user to attempt to access something on the 'other' side of the security gateway. The gateway will then present the portal, and the user can input their AD credentials.
It’s not strictly required for machines to be AD-joined unless you’re using Identity Collector. Otherwise, all the other mechanisms can be used (including Entra ID).
It is necessary to enable Identity Awareness on all gateways that enforce traffic based on identities.
Yes! MUH is under constant development. Please bring specific concerns through your local Check Point office.
SID support was added in R81. Information to configure can be found in the Identity Awareness Administration Guide for your version. If you've upgraded from a version prior to R81, refer to: https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk181946
There isn't a relationship between NAT and Identity Awareness in the most part. However, if the traffic passes outbound through 2 layers of gateways and is NATed at the first layer, then the second will not be able to identify the user. In this case, you would need to change the way NAT was implemented so that the second layer of gateways could identify the true source IP, or avoid using Identity-based security on the second layer.
It needs access to read the event log only. It doesn't need write permissions.
We don’t have specific support for it. If you have this as a requirement, please approach your local office with an RFE.
Usually this will require multiple IDCs connected with the various servers. For best scalability, you should be using the latest release (R81.20), which offers better scalability for these purposes.
Identity Collector only gets the users without information about groups. Groups are obtained from LDAP by the gateway. Both are required.
Yes, there have been improvements made already (in R81.20), and more planned. PDP is now multi-threaded and is more capable of learning Identities and sharing them to PEPs without the same load problems we have seen in the past.
Is Identity Session Sharing valid for all Identity Sources (Identity Collector, MuHv2, RADIUS, Identity Providers, Captive Portal, Remote Access) and is it recommended to have a dedicated gateway in a Management Domain?
Identity Sharing applies to all sources. Depending on your exact scale, you may need to have a dedicated gateway to run pdp,
For AD with more than 150,000 do you have any recommendations for implementation?
We have some documentation here in https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk88520, but at this scale I would recommend a consultation with one of our SMEs here at Check Point to ensure your design will be successful.
The best practice is to configure this setting on the Identity Provider, not on the Service Provider, which is what the gateway is in the context of SAML. We also cannot guarantee what the Identity Provider will do when they receive a ForceAuthn=true attribute. Also, this setting also applies for any Identity Providers configured on the gateway and will break SSO.
No confirmed roadmap for this. Please consult with your local Check Point office.
Right now, there are no plans to deprecate support for ADQuery. However, ADQuery relies on WMI, which Microsoft has made numerous changes to Windows in response to various security vulnerabilities. As a direct result of these changes, domain administrator credentials are required on the gateway to use ADQuery, which many organizations find risky. Microsoft may make additional changes in the future that break ADQuery.
We recommend all customers using ADQuery to move to Identity Collector.
Identity Broker is a standard feature and can be set up on any gateway that has Identity Awareness enabled. In large infrastructures, there are sometimes dedicated PDP brokers to share large numbers of identities across the organisation.
This is considered best practice, yes. More precisely, identities should be acquired “as close to the user as possible.”
We do not track local privilege escalations at this time.
You cannot use ADQuery with Azure/Entra ID. You must configure SAML in this case, which uses Captive Portal to capture the authentication from the user and capture the relevant groups from the SAML Assertion.
Yes, Identity Collector can learn from multiple AD servers (and indeed from AD and Cisco ICE at the same time). As Peter stated in his presentation, use of Global Catalog servers is recommended if they are available.
Yes you can, and it's a recommended method to create a resilient infrastructure. You can configure the PDP with the details of both IDCs and give them a priority. The PDP will recieve duplicate identity information from both IDCs and will consolidate them into a single Identity Session record.
Both can be used at the same time, yes.
Locally-installed Identity Agents are recommended for this use case.
Not at present. Please contact your local Check Point office if you have this requirement. However, you can potentially leverage the Identity Awareness API to "roll your own."
Any server (doesn’t even have to be AD-joined) assuming it has access to the AD server.
Identity Collector is only relevant for on-premise Active Directory.
We have a number of global customers who have a central PDP infrastructure that learns all the identities, then shares the created Identity Sessions with all the PEP gateways. I would recommend that you have a conversation with one of our Identity Awareness experts to design the best architecture. Please contact your local Check Point office.
It's best practice to learn the identities with Identity Collector as close to the source (AD server, Cisco ICE) as possible. In large infrastructures with (10k users plus), these identities are usually then passed to a local PDP so that access in the local office is allowed. The PDP then shares the Identity to a central PDP infrastructure for onward sharing to the other countries. In smaller organisations, the number of PDPs can be reduced. Your Check Point account manager or SE should be able to find you to an expert to help you work out a scalable and resilient Identity Awareness architecture that suits your needs and size.
ID Collector is the best way to learn Identities from on-premise Active Directory. It will then pass the Identity information to the IA gateway.
This is a good question! Yes, we do recommend that Identity-based security is enforced at all gateways that the traffic passes through. The Identity Sharing topics that Peter is discussing allow all gateways in the infrastructure to know about all the logged-in users and apply policy at all points in the network.
Only login events are read. To ensure only the current user is allowed, see: https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk105889
Install the Multi-User Host agent (v2), which supports Windows 10 multi-session as well as terminal servers: https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk177024
If a user IP address is expected to change, then it is recommend to use an Identity Agent to ensure accurate mapping of users to IP addresses. Otherwise, the association will be incorrect until a login event is generated and read by the relevant identity source.
Remote Access clients can authenticate via Entra ID as well. Refer to:
Video will be posted soon.
R&D are improving the integrations with external Identity Sources and Identity Providers and there are many changes coming soon. We will arrange a future session to cover OIDC and others. so we will be arranging a future session to cover OIDC and others.
The default TTL of an Identity Session is 12 hours, not 7 days.
For multi-user hosts, we recommend installing the Multi-User Host agent.
In most environments, Identity Awareness assumes that only one user is logged into a single machine. If another user logs in, or if there is activity under a system account, this can sometimes cause this issue. This can be adjusted per: https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk105889
There are options to ignore service and system accounts so that service account activity doesn't overwrite the Identity Session of the real human user.
Identity Agents all work against Active Directory only at present. Groups are queried via LDAP (usually AD). There are other ways to acquire identities, but only LDAP or SAML can be used to get group information necessary.
Please refer to the following SK for guidance: https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk175587
For centrally managed devices (e.g. with Smart-1 or Smart-1 Cloud), this is supported. For locally managed devices, it is not possible to use Identity Collector at this time.
Depends on the identity source. For Active Directory, we read the security logs using Identity Collector to get the user login information. For Entra ID or other SAML provider, it is read as part of the SAML assertion, which requires the gateway to be inline and be configured with Captive Portal.
There are a couple of ways to achieve this, yes. The first that comes to mind is to use the Captive Portal in Identity Awareness. This would require the user to attempt to access something on the 'other' side of the security gateway. The gateway will then present the portal, and the user can input their AD credentials.
It’s not strictly required for machines to be AD-joined unless you’re using Identity Collector. Otherwise, all the other mechanisms can be used (including Entra ID).
It is necessary to enable Identity Awareness on all gateways that enforce traffic based on identities.
Yes! MUH is under constant development. Please bring specific concerns through your local Check Point office.
SID support was added in R81. Information to configure can be found in the Identity Awareness Administration Guide for your version. If you've upgraded from a version prior to R81, refer to: https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk181946
There isn't a relationship between NAT and Identity Awareness in the most part. However, if the traffic passes outbound through 2 layers of gateways and is NATed at the first layer, then the second will not be able to identify the user. In this case, you would need to change the way NAT was implemented so that the second layer of gateways could identify the true source IP, or avoid using Identity-based security on the second layer.
It needs access to read the event log only. It doesn't need write permissions.
We don’t have specific support for it. If you have this as a requirement, please approach your local office with an RFE.
Usually this will require multiple IDCs connected with the various servers. For best scalability, you should be using the latest release (R81.20), which offers better scalability for these purposes.
Identity Collector only gets the users without information about groups. Groups are obtained from LDAP by the gateway. Both are required.
Yes, there have been improvements made already (in R81.20), and more planned. PDP is now multi-threaded and is more capable of learning Identities and sharing them to PEPs without the same load problems we have seen in the past.
Is Identity Session Sharing valid for all Identity Sources (Identity Collector, MuHv2, RADIUS, Identity Providers, Captive Portal, Remote Access) and is it recommended to have a dedicated gateway in a Management Domain?
Identity Sharing applies to all sources. Depending on your exact scale, you may need to have a dedicated gateway to run pdp,
For AD with more than 150,000 do you have any recommendations for implementation?
We have some documentation here in https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk88520, but at this scale I would recommend a consultation with one of our SMEs here at Check Point to ensure your design will be successful.
The best practice is to configure this setting on the Identity Provider, not on the Service Provider, which is what the gateway is in the context of SAML. We also cannot guarantee what the Identity Provider will do when they receive a ForceAuthn=true attribute. Also, this setting also applies for any Identity Providers configured on the gateway and will break SSO.
No confirmed roadmap for this. Please consult with your local Check Point office.
Right now, there are no plans to deprecate support for ADQuery. However, ADQuery relies on WMI, which Microsoft has made numerous changes to Windows in response to various security vulnerabilities. As a direct result of these changes, domain administrator credentials are required on the gateway to use ADQuery, which many organizations find risky. Microsoft may make additional changes in the future that break ADQuery.
We recommend all customers using ADQuery to move to Identity Collector.
Identity Broker is a standard feature and can be set up on any gateway that has Identity Awareness enabled. In large infrastructures, there are sometimes dedicated PDP brokers to share large numbers of identities across the organisation.
This is considered best practice, yes. More precisely, identities should be acquired “as close to the user as possible.”
We do not track local privilege escalations at this time.
You cannot use ADQuery with Azure/Entra ID. You must configure SAML in this case, which uses Captive Portal to capture the authentication from the user and capture the relevant groups from the SAML Assertion.
Yes, Identity Collector can learn from multiple AD servers (and indeed from AD and Cisco ICE at the same time). As Peter stated in his presentation, use of Global Catalog servers is recommended if they are available.
Yes you can, and it's a recommended method to create a resilient infrastructure. You can configure the PDP with the details of both IDCs and give them a priority. The PDP will recieve duplicate identity information from both IDCs and will consolidate them into a single Identity Session record.
Both can be used at the same time, yes.
Locally-installed Identity Agents are recommended for this use case.
Not at present. Please contact your local Check Point office if you have this requirement. However, you can potentially leverage the Identity Awareness API to "roll your own."
Any server (doesn’t even have to be AD-joined) assuming it has access to the AD server.
Identity Collector is only relevant for on-premise Active Directory.
We have a number of global customers who have a central PDP infrastructure that learns all the identities, then shares the created Identity Sessions with all the PEP gateways. I would recommend that you have a conversation with one of our Identity Awareness experts to design the best architecture. Please contact your local Check Point office.
It's best practice to learn the identities with Identity Collector as close to the source (AD server, Cisco ICE) as possible. In large infrastructures with (10k users plus), these identities are usually then passed to a local PDP so that access in the local office is allowed. The PDP then shares the Identity to a central PDP infrastructure for onward sharing to the other countries. In smaller organisations, the number of PDPs can be reduced. Your Check Point account manager or SE should be able to find you to an expert to help you work out a scalable and resilient Identity Awareness architecture that suits your needs and size.
ID Collector is the best way to learn Identities from on-premise Active Directory. It will then pass the Identity information to the IA gateway.
This is a good question! Yes, we do recommend that Identity-based security is enforced at all gateways that the traffic passes through. The Identity Sharing topics that Peter is discussing allow all gateways in the infrastructure to know about all the logged-in users and apply policy at all points in the network.
Only login events are read. To ensure only the current user is allowed, see: https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk105889
Install the Multi-User Host agent (v2), which supports Windows 10 multi-session as well as terminal servers: https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk177024
If a user IP address is expected to change, then it is recommend to use an Identity Agent to ensure accurate mapping of users to IP addresses. Otherwise, the association will be incorrect until a login event is generated and read by the relevant identity source.
Remote Access clients can authenticate via Entra ID. See: https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk172909
Nice presentation!
Nice presentation
I would like a more specific presentation about Ident Aware with Entra ID
Regards,
Pablo
Very balanced presentation with excellent presenter and support team.
Thank you!
News on protocol OIDC support?
I suspect this will be possible when (or sometime after) we allow IdPs to be configured in Infinity Portal.
In any case, if this is something critical for you, reach out to your local Check Point office.
Q&A is below the video.
Slides are posted at the end.
R&D are improving the integrations with external Identity Sources and Identity Providers and there are many changes coming soon. We will arrange a future session to cover OIDC and others. so we will be arranging a future session to cover OIDC and others.
The default TTL of an Identity Session is 12 hours, not 7 days.
For multi-user hosts, we recommend installing the Multi-User Host agent.
In most environments, Identity Awareness assumes that only one user is logged into a single machine. If another user logs in, or if there is activity under a system account, this can sometimes cause this issue. This can be adjusted per: https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk105889
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