Is there a proven concept to website reverse certificate authentication?
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Tom
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Published on 2011-11-14T15:59:26Z
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2011/11/14
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We're looking at exposing some of our internal application data externally via a website. The actual details of the website aren't that interesting, it'll be built using ASP.NET/IIS etc, that might be relevant. With this, I'm essentially I'm looking for a mechanism to authenticate users viewing my website.
This sounds trivial, a username/password is typically fine, but I want more. Now I've read plenty about SSL/x.509 to realise that the CA determines that we're alright, and that the user can trust us. But I want to trust the user, I want the user to be rejected if they don't have the correct credentials.
I've seen a system for online banking whereby the bank issues a certificate which gets installed on the users' computer (it was actually smartcard based). If the website can't discover/utilise the key-pair then you are immediately rejected!
This is brutal, but necessary. Is there a mechanism where I can do the following:
- Generate a certificate for a user
- Issue the certificate for them to install, it can be installed on > 1 machine
- If their certificate is not accessible, they are denied all access
- A standard username/password scheme is then used after that
- SSL employed using their certificate once they're "in"
This really must already exist, please point me in the right direction! Thanks for your help :)
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