Credential management

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9319392-B1
Application number	US-201314040373-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Sep 27, 2013
Priority date	Sep 27, 2013
Publication date	Apr 19, 2016
Grant date	Apr 19, 2016

Abstract

A credential management system is described that provides a way to disable and/or rotate credentials, such as when a credential is suspected to have been compromised, while minimizing potential impact to various systems that may depend on such credentials. The credentials may be disabled temporarily at first and the availability of various resources is monitored for changes. If no significant drop of availability in the resources has occurred, the credential may be disabled for a longer period of time. In this manner, the credentials may be disabled and re-enabled for increasingly longer time intervals until it is determined with sufficient confidence/certainty that disabling the credential will not adversely impact critical systems, at which point the credential can be rotated and/or permanently disabled. This process also enables the system to determine which systems are affected by a credential in cases where such information is not known.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer implemented method, comprising:
at a credential management system including at least one processor and memory, the memory communicatively coupled to the processor and storing instructions, the at least one processor executing the instructions to perform the operations of:
identifying a set of credentials, each credential of the set of credentials capable of being used to authenticate a corresponding user of the credential against one or more computer-based authentication systems in order to access one or more first computing resources in a distributed computing environment;
detecting that a suspect credential to be rotated was not rotated within a determined period of time;
temporarily disabling the suspect credential;
monitoring, while the suspect credential is disabled, an availability of one or more second computing resources related to the suspect credential;
re-enabling the suspect credential, using the at least one processor of the credential management system, in response to at least one of the availability remaining substantially unchanged or an expiration of a first time interval;
disabling the suspect credential for a second time interval that is longer than the first time interval in response to determining that the availability of the one or more second computing resources remained at least at a minimum threshold while the suspect credential was temporarily disabled;
detecting that the availability of the one or more second computing resources decreased under the minimum threshold during at least one of the first time interval or the second time interval; and
re-enabling the suspect credential.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
arranging the set of credentials based on criticality of permissions associated with each credential of the set of credentials; and
selecting one credential of the set of credentials as the suspect credential based on the criticality of permissions.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 2 , further comprising:
generating a notification for the corresponding user of the suspect credential, wherein the notification includes instructions to rotate the suspect credential.

4. A computer implemented method, comprising:
at a credential management system including at least one processor and memory, the memory communicatively coupled to the processor and storing instructions, the at least one processor executing the instructions to perform the operations of:
identifying a set of credentials, each credential of the set of credentials capable of being used to authenticate a user of the credential against one or more authentication systems in order to access one or more first computing resources in a distributed computing environment;
determining that a suspect credential to be rotated was not rotated within a determined period of time;
temporarily disabling the suspect credential;
monitoring, while the suspect credential is disabled, an availability of one or more second computing resources related to the suspect credential;
re-enabling the suspect credential in response to at least one of the availability remaining substantially unchanged or an expiration of a first time interval;
disabling the suspect credential for a second time interval that is longer than the first time interval in response to determining that the availability of the one or more second computing resources remained at least at a minimum threshold while the suspect credential was temporarily disabled; and
permanently disabling the suspect credential if the availability of the one or more second computing resources remains at least at the minimum threshold during both the first time interval and the second time interval.

5. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a computing system, cause the computing system to:
monitor an availability of one or more computing resources accessible using a credential, the credential capable of being used to authenticate against one or more authentication systems to access the one or more first computing resources;
disable use of the credential; and
determine a change in the availability of one or more second computing resources related to the credential after disabling use of the credential;
determine that the availability of the one or more second computing resources remained at least at a minimum threshold during a first time interval during which use of the credential was disabled;
disable the credential for a second time interval that is longer than the first time interval;
determine that the availability of the one or more second computing resources remained at least at the minimum threshold during at least the first time interval and the second time interval; and
permanently disable the credential.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 5 , wherein the instructions when executed further cause the computing system to:
re-enable the credential in response to at least one of the availability remaining substantially unchanged or an expiration of a first time interval.

7. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 5 , wherein the instructions when executed to cause the computing system to monitor the availability of the one or more computing resources, further cause the computing system to:
determine an availability of the one or more second computing resources based at least in part on information contained in one or more logs.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 5 , wherein the credential includes at least one of: a username, a password, or a public key infrastructure (PKI) certificate.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 5 , wherein the instructions when executed further cause the computing system to:
identify a plurality of credentials that are likely to have been compromised by executing automated searches across one or more specified locations.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 5 , wherein the instructions when executed further cause the computing system to:
identify at least one user using the credential and at least one first computing resource that is being accessed by the user using the credential.

11. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a computing system, cause the computing system to:
monitor an availability of one or more computing resources accessible using a credential, the credential capable of being used to authenticate against one or more authentication systems to access the one or more first computing resources;
disable use of the credential;
determine a change in the availability of one or more second computing resources related to the credential after disabling use of the credential;
detect, in response to use of the credential being disabled, that the availability of a critical second resource has decreased below the minimum threshold; and
re-enable the credential in response to detecting that the availability of the critical second resource has decreased.

12. A computing system, comprising:
at least one processor; and
memory including instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing system to:
temporarily disable a credential, the credential capable of being used to authenticate against one or more authentication systems to access one or more first computing resources;
monitor an availability of one or more second computing resources related to the credential; and
determine a c

Assignees

• Amazon Tech Inc

Inventors

• Irving Jr James Leon
• Mikulski Andrew Paul
• Roth Gregory Branchek
• Kruse William Frederick

Classifications

• H04L63/14

  for detecting or protecting against malicious traffic · CPC title

• H04L63/08 Primary

  for authentication of entities (cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32) · CPC title

• H04L63/12

  Applying verification of the received information (cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for data integrity or data verification H04L9/32) · CPC title

• H04W12/082

  using revocation of authorisation · CPC title

• H04L63/10

  for controlling access to devices or network resources · CPC title