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Two-Factor Authentication (2FA/MFA) for Cisco ISE

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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is a next generation identity and access control poicy platform that helps businesses enforce compliance, improve infrastructure security, and streamline operations.

miniOrange MFA/2FA authentication for Cisco ISE Login

miniOrange accomplishes this by acting as a RADIUS server that accepts the username/password of the user entered as a RADIUS request and validates the user against the user store as Active Directory (AD). After the first level of authentication, miniOrange prompts the user with 2-factor authentication and either grants/revokes access based on the input by the user.

1. Primary authentication initiates with the user submitting his Username and Password for Cisco ISE.
2. User request acts as an authentication request to RADIUS Server(miniOrange).
3. miniOrange RADIUS server passes user credentials to validate against the credentials stored in AD (Active Directory) / Database.
4. Once the user's first level of authentication gets validated AD sends the confirmation to RADIUS Server.
5. Now miniOrange RADIUS Server asks for a 2-factor authentication challenge to the user.
6. Here user submits the response/code which he receives on his hardware/phone.
7. User response is checked at miniOrange’s RADIUS Server side.
8. On successful 2nd factor authentication the user is granted access to login.

Enable Multi Factor Authentication MFA/2FA for Cisco ISE

1. Configure Cisco ISE in miniOrange

• Login into miniOrange Admin Console.
• Click on Customization in the left menu of the dashboard.
• In Basic Settings, set the Organization Name as the custom_domain name.
• Click Save. Once that is set, the branded login URL would be of the format https://<custom_domain>.xecurify.com/moas/login



• Go to Apps Click on Add Application button.



• In Choose Application, select RADIUS (VPN) from the application type dropdown.



• Click on Cisco ISE application tab. If you don't find your application click on Radius Client application tab.



• Click on "Click here" to get the Radius server IPs.



• Copy and save the Radius server IP which will be required to configure your Radius client.



• Configure the below details to add Radius Client.




Client Name:	Any name for your reference.
Client IP:	IP address of VPN server which will send Radius authentication request.
Shared Secret:	Security key. For Eg. "sharedsecret" (Keep this with you, you will need to configure same on VPN Server).

• Click Next.
• Under the Attribute Mappings tab, enable the toggle if you want to Send Custom Attributes in response.



• To send groups in response, you can refer the below table for Vendor group attributes id.
  

  Vendor Name	Vendor Attribute	Value Type	Attribute
  Cisco ASA	ASA-Group_policy	User	Groups
  Fortinet	Fortinet-Group-Name	User	Groups
  Palo Alto	PaloAlto-user-Group	User	Groups
  SonicWall	Sonicwall-user-group	User	Groups
  Citrix	Citrix-user-groups	User	Groups
  Default(Can be used if your vendor is not in the list)	Filter-Id	User	Groups

• Value Type and Attribute can be changed based on the requirement.
• Click on Next to proceed.
• Configure the following Policy details for the Radius Client.




Group Name:	Group for which the policy will apply.
Policy Name:	Any Identifier that specifies policy name.
Login Method	Login Method for the users associated with this policy.
Enable 2-Factor Authentication	Enables Second Factor during Login for users associated with this policy.
Enable Adaptive Authentication	Enables Adaptive Authentication for Login of users associated with this policy.

• After configuring the given above details, Click on Save button.
Note: You can follow this guide, if you want to configure Radius MFA using MSCHAPv2 protocol.

NOTE: For On-Premise version follow the below steps before testing the connectivity.



Only For On-Premise Version

Open Firewall Ports.

• In order to receive the RADIUS request, it is necessary to open UDP traffic on ports 1812 and 1813 for the machine where On-Premise IdP is deployed.
• If the hosting machine is a Windows Machine then you can follow this document.
• If the hosting machine is a Linux Machine then you can follow this document.

NOTE: If your machine is hosted on AWS, then enable the ports from the AWS panel.

2. Configure Cisco ISE

• Navigate to Administration → Network Resources → External RADIUS Servers and click Add.

Setting	Value
Name	Give any name for Radius Server.
Host IP	Enter the hostname or IP address of Radius server of miniOrange that you got from Step 1.
Shared Secret	Shared Secret used while app creation in miniOrange.
Authentication Port	1812
Server Timeout	60 seconds to allow sufficient time to complete miniOrange authentication.




• Click Save to add the new server.
• Now navigate to Administration → Network Resources → RADIUS Server Sequence and click Add.
• Enter any sequence name you want to add and select the newly added server that you have entered above within the Available selection, and click the arrow to add your chosen server to the Selected section. Also check the Local accounting option.



• If you wish to configure authorization settings or other device posturing settings with ISE policies then also check the On AccessAccept, continue to Authorization Policy option on the "Advanced Attribute Setting" tab. If not, leave that option unchecked.
• Click Save to apply the change
• Now navigate to Policy → Policy Sets.
• Click the drop-down of the policy set you wish to change and select your added sequence name.



• Click Save to apply the change.

Creating User Groups (Recommended)

• AD user group
• miniOrange user group

• This step involves Importing the user group from the Active Directory and Provisioning them.
• Go to Provisioning. Switch to Setup Provisioning tab and select Active Directory from Dropdown menu.



• Select Group Provisioning/Deprovisioning tab, and toggle on Import Group option.
• Enter the Base DN for group sync and click Save.



• If you want to dynamically allocate users to the groups present in the miniOrange, then enable "Assign Users to groups"



• Now switch to Import Groups option and select Active Directory from which you want to import your users.
• Finally, click on Import button. Your group will be imported.




(The Active Directory Group Provisioning (Sync) setup is done. Now, whenever a user is created or modified in LDAP server and if the Assign Users to groups is enabled, then user group attribute from the LDAP server will be automatically synced and the user group will be assigned or changed accordingly in miniOrange.)

• Select Groups >> Manage Groups from left panel.
• Click on the Create Group button on the top.



• Enter an appropriate Group Name and click on Create Group.



• In this guide we have created a Group by name VPN_Group.
• Assign various members to the group using the Assign User option associated with the group in the groups list.



• Select the Users that are required to be assigned to this group. Then Select Assign to Group in Select Action Dropdown and click on Apply button.



• These groups will be helpful in adding multiple 2FA policies on the applications.

6. Setup MFA for Cisco ISE

• Here, we will configure a policy for the User Group that we created in this step and associate it with the Cisco ISE VPN Application.
• Click on Policies tab >> App Login Policy.



• Click on Add Policy tab.
• In Application section, select the RADIUS App that we configured earlier in Step 1.
• Select the required User Group in Group Name and enter the Policy name.
• In this guide, we will configure a Password Only policy for "VPN_Group", so that only the VPN_Group members can access VPN Services without a Second Factor.
• Once done with the policy settings, click on Save to Add Policy.

7. Test 2FA for Cisco ISE Login

• Connect to Cisco ISE.
• Enter Username, Password and 2FA code.

With the help of this guide you will be able to configure Two-Factor Authentication(2FA) for Cisco ISE VPN Client Login.

8. Troubleshooting

Further References

• Multi-Factor authentication for Cisco Routers & Switches
• Multi-Factor Authentication for Cisco AnyConnect VPN
• Adaptive Multi-Factor authentication
• Multi-Factor authentication
• Free MFA Trial
• Essential 8 Security Compliance