Written by One of the challenges that IAM/IAG teams may have every few months is delivery or access for internal/external auditors to validate access within the IAM/IAG system and their managed endpoints.
Usually, auditors may directly access the 100’s system/endpoints/applications and randomly select a few or export the entire directory structure to review access. This effort takes time and possible 100’s of entitlements to grant temporary/expiry access to view. Auditors also prefer Excel or CSV files to review rather than fixed documents (PDF) to allow them to filter and isolate what interests them.
One process that may have value for your team is various tools with export functionality to CSV/XLS and the ability to query the 100’s-1000’s of systems from a single entry point.
A tool that we have found valuable over the years is SoftTerra LDAP Browser.
https://www.ldapadministrator.com/softerra-ldap-browser.htm
The multiple benefits from this tool for IAM/IAG are:
- It is a read-only tool, so no mistakes can be made by granting too much access.
- It has the ability to save queries that are popular and can be copied from other tools.
- It has the ability to export the queries to CSV/XLS formats (plus others)
- It can be used to pull reports from an IAM/IAG solution via their directory ports.
- It can be used to pull reports from the managed applications (on-prem or SaaS) via the IAM provisioning directory ports.
- The tool is free from SoftTerra, it is a limited version of their Administration tool
A view to export Service Now (SNOW) accounts via the CA/Symantec Identity Manager Provisioning Server/Service (TCP 20390) via the LDAP/S protocol.
Why? The provisioning server may be viewed as a virtual directory/pass-through directory to the managed endpoints via its connector tier.
The below image shows SoftTerra LDAPBrowser used to connect to the Provisioning Server (TCP 20390). Then navigate to a Service Now (SNOW) managed endpoint, to query on all accounts and their respective profiles & entitlements. This same report/extract process may be done for mainframe/AS400 and client-server applications, e.g Active Directory, Unix, Databases, etc.
Enhance this process with defense-in-depth
We will not use the primary default administration account of the provisioning tier, “etaadmin”. Since this account has full access to change data.
Within the IAM/IAG solution, create an auditor account.
In the example below we create a new Global User, with the name “auditor”, a description, password, and a local “read-only admin profile” with an expiration date. This will allow the auditors to use the account as they wish (or you may grant this “read-only admin profile directly to their existing Global User ID). The account may still follow the same password reset expiration processes. If the account is marked as “restricted” in the CA/Symantec IM solution, then this account is limited how it may be changed to avoid any unexpected sync challenges to managed endpoints (if it was correlated to other accounts).
After the new Global User is created (or existing ID is added to the Admin Profile “ReadAdministrator”), update SoftTerra Credentials for the Provisioning Service. Below the new DN with “auditor” is shown in the credentials for login ID, e.g. “eTGlobalUserName=auditor,eTGlobalUserContainerName=Global Users,eTNamespaceName=CommonObjects,dc=im,dc=eta”
Honorable mentions for other query tools.
Jxplorer is a useful & free java-based tool for reports, but this is a full edit tool & only exports out to LDIF format. http://jxplorer.org/
Apache Directory Studio is another very useful & free java-based tool for reports. This is a full edit tool. It does have the ability to export to many different formats. Since this tool does NOT need an MS Windows installer, and if the Desktop prevent installation, this is typically our 2nd choice to use. Extract and use the current java on the MS Windows OS or download AdoptOpenJDK and extract it to use with Apache Directory Studio. https://directory.apache.org/studio/ & https://adoptopenjdk.net/
SoftTerra LDAP Administrator is a paid and full edit tool. It has the same look-n-feel of the SoftTerra LDAP Browser tool. It is typically used by administrators of various LDAP solutions. We recommend this tool for your larger sites or if you would like a fast responsive tool on MS Windows OS. https://www.ldapadministrator.com/
If you have other recommendations, please leave a response.
Bonus Feature – SoftTerra AD Authentication
Both the SoftTerra tools allow binding using your existing authentication (on your desktop/laptop) into Active Directory. No need to create additional user ID for the auditors or yourself.
Perhaps the O365 or Outlook contacts process is not robust or too slow or perhaps you wish you had a more detail view of your internal active directory to view a manager’s direct reports. You can use this feature to view the the non-privacy attributes of your domain of all accounts with a read-only tool.
Step 01: Open a command-line prompt on your desktop/workstation after you have authenticated to your Active Directory domain & type set | findstr LOGONSERVER
Step 02: Install SoftTerra LDAP Browser Tool & Create a new profile
Step 03: Type the name of the Active Directory LOGONSERVER (aka Domain Controller) into the following fields & ensure “Use Secure Connection (SSL)” is selected (to avoid query issues).
Step 04: Click Next until you see “User Authentication Information” then select the radio button for “Currently logged on user (Active Directory)”, then click Finish button.
Step 05: After the profile is built, now click on the profile and watch it expand into a tree display of Active Directory. Select the branch that you believe has the list of users you would like to view, then select an individual user account, to see the values populated.
Step 06: If you wish to export this data to a spreadsheet (CSV/XLS), right click on the left object and select export option.
Step 07: You will have a series of options to export to & the file name it will write to.
Step 08: Advance search and export process. Select the branch that holds all the users you wish to view and export. Note: If the branch has 10,000 objects, this process may take minutes to complete depending on the query.
Step 09: The follow search windows will appear to help you create, save, and export your queries. Note that if you start to type in the field name, the list of the fields will start to appear.
Step 10: Ensure the FILTER is properly formed (use google to assist), and which attribute you wish to view or export is defined, then click search. If you are satisfied with your search, use the “Save Results” to export to a spreadsheet (CSV/XLS) or other format.
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