PowerStore and RSA SecurID – Solving your Multi-Factor Authentication Requirements
Thu, 08 Jun 2023 16:30:18 -0000
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PowerStore authentication overview
Previous versions of PowerStore supported basic or single factor authentication for both local and LDAP users. With growing security concerns in the global environment, many users are constantly looking to improve their security posture. The PowerStoreOS 3.5 release helps meet this goal by implementing multi-factor authentication support.
Improved security and authentication in PowerStoreOS 3.5
The new PowerStoreOS 3.5 release supports multi-factor authentication (MFA) with RSA SecurID. Multi-factor authentication, also known as advanced or two-factor authentication, provides an additional layer of security when logging into or performing functions on the system. It is a core component of a strong identity and access management (IAM) policy, which is critical to many organizations in today’s security climate.
Multi-factor authentication provides a higher security posture and has many advantages. It increases the security of accounts and data against hackers, mitigates the risks of poor password practices, and helps users stay compliant with regulations.
PowerStore’s multi-factor authentication software integrates with RSA SecurID, an authentication product that validates the identity of a user before allowing them access. Many users all over the world already leverage RSA for their intranet, so this release makes it easy to use that same infrastructure with PowerStore. Figure 1 shows how easy it is to configure and discover your RSA authentication manager from within PowerStore Manager.
Figure 1. Configure and Discover RSA authentication manager
Here you click the Configure button and enter your RSA SecurID Server settings as shown in Figure 2. The required information is the Server IP or FQDN, Client ID (PowerStore cluster IP), and the access key created in your RSA server.
Figure 2. RSA SecurID Server settings
Next, you simply browse for your RSA certificate file or paste it into the box as shown in Figure 3. The RSA certificate file and access key that you enter help ensure secure communications between the RSA authentication manager and PowerStore.
Figure 3. RSA certificate
The next step in the authentication wizard is to configure a bypass user if desired. Selecting and configuring a bypass user (Figure 4) allows a user to have the ability to bypass the RSA MFA login process. It is highly recommended to choose a local administrator for this purpose in case you lose access to the SecurID authentication manager. If this happened and you didn’t have a valid bypass user, you wouldn’t be able to log into the PowerStore system. A service script also allows the service user to manually bypass users, if the need arises.
Figure 4. Bypass user
Then, you decide in the wizard if you want to enable MFA with RSA right away, or enable it manually later, see Figure 5. If you choose to enable RSA SecurID right away, you will be logged out of PowerStore Manager and be required to login with MFA RSA authentication.
Figure 5. Enable RSA SecurID
Finally, you review your configuration settings and click Configure (Figure 6),
Figure 6. Configure Authentication summary
Now when you log in using MFA with RSA enabled on your PowerStore system, you log in as normal with single factor username and password authentication as shown in Figure 7, but will be prompted for the RSA SecurID passcode afterwards, as shown in Figure 8. This multi-factor authentication provides the additional security many customers and their infrastructures require. Note that this feature works with LDAP authentication as well as local users.
Figure 7. Single factor login
Figure 8. MFA with RSA SecurID login
Conclusion
I hope this blog gave you a quick glimpse into how easy it is to set up and use multi-factor authentication with RSA SecurID on PowerStore to increase your organization’s security posture.
Resources
For additional information about the features described in this blog, and other information about the PowerStoreOS 3.5 release, see the following:
Other resources
- What’s New In PowerStoreOS 3.5?
- Dell Technologies Main Info Hub
- Dell Technologies PowerStore Info Hub
- PowerStore: Info Hub - Product Documentation & Videos
- Dell PowerStore Hands-on Labs
Author: Andrew Sirpis