• Home
• App Integrations
• MFA Integrations
• Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for Box

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for Box

---

Box 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) or Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is an additional layer of security in which a user or an organizational employee have to provide two factors to gain access to the Box account. With Box TFA being enabled, anyone trying to login to your Box account from an unrecognized computer/device must provide additional authorization. Authentication starts with a user submitting his traditional username and password. Once the user successfully gets authenticated with the 1st step verification, configured 2FA (OTP over SMS, Push Notifications, YubiKey, TOTP, Google Authenticator etc) method prompts for 2nd-step verification. After successfully authenticating with both of the steps a user is granted with the access to the Box account. This extra layer prevents the unauthorized person from accessing the resources even if cyber attackers get to know your credentials.

miniorange provides 15+ types of MFA and solutions for various use cases. It allows users and organizations to set up certain authentication and settings which includes password restrictions, restricting sign-in methods, as well as other security settings. miniorange also makes way for authentication apps that support Time-Based One-Time Password (TOTP) Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Authy 2-Factor authentication app and our own miniorange Authenticator app.

Pre-requisite

To set up app integration for SSO in miniOrange , get the required values (eg.SP Entity ID, ACS URL or SP Metadata File) from your Box admin dashboard. For this follow the following steps:

• Login to your Box account as an administrator and click on Admin Console.



• Navigate to Enterprise Settings >> User Settings.



• Scroll down to the Configure Single Sign-on for all users section. Under this you will find "Learn more about setting up SSO here" highlighted in blue. Click on this link.



• A new tab will open.



• Scroll down to find the “What you need from Box to set up your connection” section.
• You can either copy paste these values manually or save the Box metadata file from here which will be needed further to import to the miniorange.

Follow the Step-by-Step Guide given below for Box Single Sign-On (SSO)

1. Configure Box in miniOrange

• Login into miniOrange Admin Console.
• Go to Apps and click on Add Application button.



• In Choose Application, select SAML/WS-FED from the application type dropdown.



• Search for Box in the list, if you don't find Box in the list then, search for custom and you can set up your application in Custom SAML App.

• Go back to your miniOrange Admin Dashboard to configure SSO for Box using the information you copied.
• To configure the SSO paste the metadata text you copied from the Box console in miniOrange Dashboard using the Import SP Metadata feature..



• Leave the Attributes section empty.
• Click on Save.

Get IdP Metadata Details to upload to Box:

• Go to Apps >> Manage Apps.
• Search for your app and click on the select in action menu against your app.
• Click on Metadata to get metadata details, which will be required later. Click on Link to see the IDP initiated SSO link for Box.



• Here you will see 2 options, if you are setting up miniOrange as IDP copy the metadetails related to miniOrange, if you required to be authenticated via external IDP's (OKTA, AZURE AD, ADFS, ONELOGIN, GOOGLE APPS) you can get metadata from the 2nd Section as shown below.



• Keep SAML Login URL , SAML Logout URL and click on the Download Metadata button to download certificate which you will require in Step 2.

2. Configure SSO in Box

To configure SSO first add miniOrange as an IDP in Box by filling the Box SSO Setup support form

• Switch back to the Box admin Dashboard.
• Navigate to Enterprise Settings >> User Settings >> Configure Single Sign-on for all users section >> "Learn more about setting up SSO here" link.



• Scroll down to find the “Setting Up SSO on your own” section and click on the Box SSO setup support form link. Fill in the form with necessary information to setup miniOrange as an Identity Provider (IdP).



• Enter your email address and Box Subdomain.
• Select Other with Metadata from who is your Identity Provider? dropdown.



• Enter attribute values (email, first name, last name etc).



• Now choose and upload the Metadata File in the xml format
• click on Submit.



• Box support team will process your request and provide you with the necessary information to configure the SSO in miniOrange.
• It can take up to 24 hours to process the metadata. Once the file has been processed, Box sends a notification to the email address of the main account admin.
• You can now enable SSO for your enterprise. Begin by enabling SSO Test Mode. In Test Mode, you can log in using SSO credentials. Also verify that you can log out and in again using SSO credentials before you continue.
• After you have tested that the SSO login flow is working correctly, you can enable SSO Required.

3. Configure 2FA for Box

3.1: Enable 2FA for Users of Box app

• To enable 2FA for Users of Box application. Go to Policies >> App Authentication Policy
• Click on Edit against the application you have configured.



• Enable the Enable 2-Factor Authentication (MFA) option.



• Click on Save.

3.2: Configure 2FA for your Endusers

• To enable 2FA/MFA for endusers, go to 2-Factor Authentication >> 2FA Options For EndUsers.
• Select default Two-Factor authentication method for end users. Also, you can select particular 2FA methods, which you want to show on the end users dashboard.
• Once Done with the settings, click on Save to configure your 2FA settings.

3.3: Enduser 2FA Setup

• Login to End-User Dashboard using end user login URL.
• For Cloud Version: The login URL (branding url) which you have set.
• For On-Premise version: The login URL will be the same as of Admin Login URL.
• Select Setup 2FA from left panel. Then select any of the 2FA method available.
• For now, we have selected the SMS >> OTP OVER SMS as our 2FA method. You can explore the guide to setup other 2FA methods here.
• Enable the OTP over SMS if you have your phone number added under your profile section else click on Edit button.



• Enter you Phone Number along with the necessary country code and click on the SAVE button.

4. Test Box 2FA

a. If 2FA for for End-user is configured

• Go to your Box Domain. It will redirect you to miniOrange Single Sign-On Service console.



• Enter your login credentials, and click on login. It will prompt to verify yourself against the configured 2fa method.
  e.g. If you have configured OTP over SMS, after login into Box it will prompt for OTP.



• Enter the OTP received in your phone, after successful 2fa verification, you will be redirected to the Box dashboard.

b. If 2FA for end-user is not enabled

• You will be prompted to register for 2Fa for end-user. It's a one time process.
• Configure your basic details.



• Configure any authentication method of your choice.



• After successful registration, you will be logged in to your Box account.


Not able to configure or test MFA?


Contact us or email us at idpsupport@xecurify.com and we'll help you setting it up in no time.

5. Adaptive Authentication with Box

A. Restricting access to Box with IP Blocking

You can use adaptive authentication with Box Single Sign-On (SSO) to improve the security and functionality of Single Sign-On. You can allow a IP Address in certain range for SSO or you can deny it based your requirements and you can also challenge the user to verify his authenticity. Adaptive authentication manages the user authentication bases on different factors such as Device ID, Location, Time of Access, IP Address and many more.

You can configure Adaptive Authentication with IP Blocking in following way:

• Login to Self Service Console >> Adaptive Authentication.
• Add a Policy Name for your Adaptive Authentication Policy.



• Select your Action for behavior Change and Challenge Type for user from the Action for behavior Change Section.





Action for behavior Change Options :




Attribute	Description
Allow	Allow user to authenticate and use services if Adaptive authentication condition is true.
Challenge	Challenge users with one of the three methods mentioned below for verifying user authenticity.
Deny	Deny user authentications and access to services if Adaptive authentication condition is true.




Challenge Type Options :




Attribute	Description
User second Factor	The User needs to authenticate using the second factor he has opted or assigned for such as OTP over SMS PUSH Notification OTP over Email And 12 more methods.
KBA (Knowledge-based authentication)	The System will ask user for 2 of 3 questions he has configured in his Self Service Console. Only after right answer to both questions user is allowed to proceed further.
OTP over Alternate Email	User will receive a OTP on the alternate email he has configured threw Self Service Console. Once user provides the correct OTP he is allowed to proceed further.



• Now Enable Enable IP Restriction option from the IP RESTRICTION CONFIGURATION section to configure custom IP range.



• Select the Action you want to perform if the IP address is out of the range. i.e. Allow, Challenge & Deny.
• Specify the IP Address range for which you want above setting to reflect. You can add more than one IP Address ranges by clicking on following button +.
• Scroll to the end and click on save.

B. Adaptive Authentication with Limiting number of devices.

Using Adaptive Authentication you can also restrict the number of devices the end user can access the Services on. You can allow end users to access services on a fixed no. of devices. The end users will be able to access services provided by us on this fixed no. of devices.

You can configure Adaptive Authentication with Device Restriction in following way


• Login to Self Service Console >> Adaptive Authentication.
• Add a Policy Name for your Adaptive Authentication Policy.
• Select your Action for behavior Change and Challenge Type for user from the Action for behavior Change Section.




• Scroll down to Device Configuration section and enable Allow User to Register Device option to allow users to register their devices.
• Enter the Number of Devices which are allowed to register in field next to Number of Device Registrations Allowed
• Choose Action if number of devices exceeded (This will override your setting for Action for behavior Change.)
1. Challenge: The user needs to verify himself using any of the three methods mentioned in table in step 5.1
2. Deny : Deny users access to the system
• Enable option Send email alerts to Users if number of Device registrations exceeded allowed count if you want to alert the user about no of devices exceeding the limit. Save the configuration.

C. Add Adaptive Authentication policy to Box.

• Login to Self Service Console >> Policies.
• Click on Edit option for predefined app policy.



• Set your application name in the Application and select password as Login Method.
• Enable Adaptive Authentication on Policy page and select the required restriction method as an option.
• From Select Login Policy dropdown select the policy we created in last step and click on save.

D.Notification and Alert Message.

This section handles the notifications and alerts related to Adaptive Authentication.It provides the following options :

• Get email alerts if users login from unknown devices or locations : Admin need to enable this option to enable receiving alerts for different alert options.
  
  
  

Option	Description
Challenge Completed and Device Registered	Enabling this option allows you to send an email alert when an end-user completes a challenge and registers a device.
Challenge Completed but Device Not Registered	Enabling this option allows you to send an email alert when an end-user completes a challenge but do not registers the device.
Challenge Failed	Enabling this option allows you to send an email alert when an end-user fails to complete the challenge.






• Next subsection is Send email alerts which allows us to enable or disable alerts for admin and end-users. To enable alerts for admins, you can enable the “Administrators” switch button.




• In case you want multiple admins accounts to receive alerts then you can enable the option for admin and then enter the admin emails separated by a ‘,’ in the input field next to Administrators email to receive alerts label. To enable alerts for the end-users, you can enable the “End Users” switch button.
• In case you want to customize the deny message that end user receive in case his authentication denied due to adaptive policy, you can do this by entering the message inside “Deny message for Adaptive Authentication” text box.


How to add a trusted Device

1. When End-user log in to the self service console after the policy for device restriction is on, he is provided the option to add the current device as a trusted device.

External References

• Box admin console
• Box SSO Setup information
• Looking for Box SSO solution
• What is MFA?
• Two-Factor Authentication methods
• Learn about Step-Up Authentication
• What is IAM? Identity and Access Management System Benefits