Authentication Systems Design
Travis L. Guckert
LeMay Publishing
TECHNICAL
Authentication Systems Design
Security16,319 words101 chapters
Published by LeMay Publishing. 16,319 words across 101 chapters.
About This Publication
Technical manual on passkey/WebAuthn implementation, OIDC federation, and zero-trust authentication architecture.
Published by LeMay Publishing, a division of LeMay. Massachusetts.
ISBN: 979-8-0000-5127-6
Chapters
1AUTHENTICATION SYSTEMS DESIGN
2Passkey/WebAuthn Implementation, OIDC Federation, and Zero-Trust Authentication Architecture
3ABOUT THE AUTHORS
4DISCLAIMER
5PREFACE
6TABLE OF CONTENTS
7CHAPTER 1 — FOUNDATIONS: THREAT MODELS AND AUTHENTICATION PRIMITIVES
81.1 The Purpose of Authentication
91.2 Authentication Factor Taxonomy
101.3 The Threat Model
111.4 Design Principles
12CHAPTER 2 — CRYPTOGRAPHIC UNDERPINNINGS OF MODERN AUTHENTICATION
132.1 Asymmetric Cryptography and Digital Signatures
142.2 Elliptic Curve Cryptography in WebAuthn
152.3 Attestation and Its Cryptographic Basis
162.4 The Challenge-Response Paradigm
172.5 Key Wrapping and Credential Storage Models
182.6 Channel Binding and Origin Validation
19CHAPTER 3 — THE WEBAUTHN SPECIFICATION: ARCHITECTURE AND PROTOCOL MECHANICS
203.1 Specification Overview and Governance
213.2 The Registration Ceremony (navigator.credentials.create)
223.3 The Authentication Ceremony (navigator.credentials.get)
233.4 The Flags Byte and User Verification Semantics
243.5 Relying Party Identifier Scoping
253.6 Extensions
26CHAPTER 4 — PASSKEY IMPLEMENTATION: REGISTRATION, AUTHENTICATION, AND CREDENTIAL MANAGEMENT
274.1 What Is a Passkey?
284.2 Passkey Synchronization and Its Security Implications
294.3 Registration Implementation
304.4 Authentication Implementation
314.5 Credential Management Considerations
32CHAPTER 5 — PLATFORM AND ROAMING AUTHENTICATOR INTEGRATION
335.1 Platform Authenticators
345.2 Roaming Authenticators
355.3 Hybrid Transport (caBLE / FIDO Cross-Device Authentication)
365.4 Authenticator Selection Strategy
37CHAPTER 6 — OPENID CONNECT: PROTOCOL ARCHITECTURE AND TOKEN MECHANICS
386.1 OIDC in the Authentication Landscape
396.2 Core Protocol Flow: Authorization Code Grant
406.3 The ID Token
416.4 Discovery and Dynamic Registration
426.5 Token Binding and Proof of Possession
43CHAPTER 7 — OIDC FEDERATION: MULTI-PARTY TRUST AND DYNAMIC PROVIDER DISCOVERY
447.1 The Problem of Trust at Scale
457.2 Entity Statements and Trust Chains
467.3 Trust Anchors and Federation Operators
477.4 Metadata Policy
487.5 Trust Marks
497.6 Automatic Registration
507.7 Deployment Considerations
51CHAPTER 8 — INTEGRATING WEBAUTHN WITH OIDC: FEDERATED PASSKEY AUTHENTICATION
528.1 The Integration Architecture
538.2 OP-Side Passkey Implementation
548.3 RP-Side Consumption of Authentication Metadata
558.4 Session Binding and Token Lifecycle
568.5 Cross-Device and Cross-Platform Considerations
57CHAPTER 9 — ZERO-TRUST AUTHENTICATION ARCHITECTURE: PRINCIPLES AND DESIGN PATTERNS
589.1 The Zero-Trust Premise
599.2 The Authentication Plane in Zero-Trust
609.3 Authentication Signals in Zero-Trust
619.4 The Identity-Aware Proxy Pattern
629.5 Service-to-Service Authentication
639.6 Micro-Segmentation and Per-Request Authorization
64CHAPTER 10 — CONTINUOUS AUTHENTICATION AND ADAPTIVE ACCESS CONTROL
6510.1 Beyond the Authentication Ceremony
6610.2 Signal Sources for Continuous Evaluation
6710.3 Step-Up Authentication
6810.4 Adaptive Access Control Architecture
6910.5 Token-Based Session Architecture
70CHAPTER 11 — CREDENTIAL LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT AND ACCOUNT RECOVERY
7111.1 The Lifecycle Problem
7211.2 Credential Provisioning
7311.3 Credential Rotation and Replacement
7411.4 Account Recovery
7511.5 Credential Revocation
76CHAPTER 12 — DEPLOYMENT STRATEGY, MIGRATION, AND OPERATIONAL CONCERNS
7712.1 Migration from Password-Based Authentication
7812.2 Infrastructure Requirements
7912.3 Monitoring and Alerting
8012.4 Disaster Recovery
81CHAPTER 13 — COMPLIANCE, AUDIT, AND REGULATORY ALIGNMENT
8213.1 Regulatory Landscape
8313.2 Audit Trail Requirements
8413.3 Audit Readiness
85CHAPTER 14 — REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE AND IMPLEMENTATION PATTERNS
8614.1 Architecture Overview
8714.2 Registration Flow: End-to-End
8814.3 Authentication Flow: End-to-End
8914.4 Step-Up Authentication Flow
9014.5 Account Recovery Flow
9114.6 Credential Revocation Flow
9214.7 Configuration Reference: WebAuthn Registration Options
9314.8 Configuration Reference: OIDC Provider Settings
9414.9 Security Checklist
95BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
96Standards and Specifications
97Government Publications
98Industry Publications
99Academic and Technical References
100INDEX OF STANDARDS AND SPECIFICATIONS
101GLOSSARY