Duo Single Sign-On for IBM QRadar

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 IBM QRadar 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 IBM QRadar.

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 IBM QRadar. Duo checks the user, device, and network against an application's policy before allowing access to the application.

Configure Single Sign-On

Before configuring IBM QRadar 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 IBM QRadar application in Duo.

Create the IBM QRadar Application in Duo

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

2. Locate the entry for IBM QRadar 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 IBM QRadar. See Protecting Applications for more information about protecting applications with Duo and additional application options. You'll need the information on the IBM QRadar page under Downloads later.

3. IBM QRadar uses the Mail attribute when authenticating. We've mapped the <Email Address> bridge attribute to Duo Single Sign-On supported authentication source attributes as follows:

   Bridge Attribute	Active Directory	SAML IdP
   <Email Address>	mail	Email

   If you are using a non-standard email attribute for your authentication source, check the Custom attributes box and enter the name of the attribute 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 IBM QRadar 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 IBM QRadar 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 IBM QRadar for SSO

To enable IBM QRadar for SSO, do the sections below in the order they appear. Group mapping is optional.

Create a User Role

1. Log into IBM QRadar as an administrator.

2. At the top of the page, click the Admin tab. The "Admin" page opens.

3. In the left menu sidebar, navigate to System Configuration → User Management.

4. Under "User Management", click User Roles. The "User Role Management" pop-up window opens.

5. In the top left corner of the pop-up window, click New.

6. Enter a unique name for your user role into the User Role Name field.

   Note: If you will be mapping your IBM QRadar role to Duo groups, make note of your user role name. You will need it later.

7. Select the desired permissions for your user role.

8. Scroll down to "Dashboards". Under "Available Dashboards", select the dashboard you want the user role to access and then click Add. You can add multiple dashboards.

9. Click Save and close the "User Role Management" pop-up window.

10. On the "Admin" page, click Deploy Changes.

Create a Security Profile

1. On the "Admin" page under "User Management", click Security Profiles. The "Security Profile Management" pop-up window opens.

2. In the top left corner of the pop-up window, click New.

3. Enter a unique name for your security profile into the Security Profile Name field.

4. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Service Provider", type the same name entered in the IBM QRadar Security Profile Name field into the Duo Admin Panel Profile field.

   

5. Return to the IBM QRadar "Security Profile Management" pop-up window. Select the desired settings for your security profile in the Permission Precedence, Networks, and Log Sources tabs.

6. Click Save and close the "Security Profile Management" pop-up window.

7. On the "Admin" page, click Deploy Changes.

Provision a Tenant

1. On the "Admin" page under "User Management", click Tenant Management. The "Tenant Management" pop-up window opens.

2. In the top left corner of the pop-up window, click Add. The "Add Tenant" pop-up window opens.

3. Enter a unique name for your tenant into the Name field.

4. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Service Provider", type the same name entered in the IBM QRadar Name field into the Duo Admin Panel Tenant field.

   

5. Return to the IBM QRadar "Tenant Management" pop-up window. Click Create and close the "Tenant Management" pop-up window.

6. On the "Admin" page, click Deploy Changes.

Configure SSO

1. On the "Admin" page under "User Management", click Authentication. The "Authentication Settings" pop-up window opens.

2. Click the Authentication Module Settings tile. The "Authentication Module Settings" pop-up window opens.

3. Click the Authentication Module Settings drop-down menu and select SAML 2.0.

4. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Downloads", click Download XML.

5. Return to the IBM QRadar "Authentication Module Settings" pop-up window. Under "Identity Provider Configuration", click Select Metadata File and open the XML file you downloaded from Duo earlier.

6. Under "Service Provider Configuration", do the following for each drop-down menu:

   Note: The Entity ID field is pre-populated.

   • NameID format set to Email Address

   • Request Binding Protocol set to HTTP-POST

   • Request Signed Assertion set to No

   • Request Encrypted Assertion set to No

   • Sign Authentication Request set to No

   • Certificate for signing and encryption set to QRadar_SAML

7. Under "How to authorize", click the User Attributes radio button.

8. The user attributes are case sensitive. Type the following into the user attibute fields:

   • Type Role into User Role Attribute

   • Type profile into Security Profile Attribute

   • Type tenant into Tenant Attribute

9. Click Save Authentication Module. The IBM QRadar XML file downloads automatically.

10. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Service Provider", click Choose File and open the XML file you downloaded from IBM QRadar earlier.

11. In the Duo Admin Panel, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save.

Group Mapping

Mapping Duo groups to different roles in IBM QRadar is optional. To map Duo groups, do the following:

1. In the Duo Admin Panel under "Service Provider", type the name of the user role you created earlier into the IBM QRadar Role Name field.

2. Click the Duo groups drop-down menu and select the applicable Duo group(s).

   

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

Learn more about IBM QRadar SSO at IBM Documentation.

Using SSO

You can log on to IBM QRadar by navigating to your IBM QRadar SSO page e.g., https://yourdomain/console. You will be automatically 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 IBM QRadar to complete the login process.

* Universal Prompt experience shown.

You can also log into IBM QRadar using Duo Central, our cloud-hosted portal which allows users to access all of their applications in one spot. Link to IBM QRadar in Duo Central by adding it as an application tile. Once the tile has been added, log into Duo Central and click the tile for IdP-initiated authentication to IBM QRadar.

Congratulations! Your IBM QRadar 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 IBM QRadar 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.