What's new in Softerra Adaxes 2011.3

Self-Service Password Reset

The new version of Adaxes includes the Self-Service Password Reset feature that allows users to securely reset their passwords themselves without addressing help desk or administrators. Users can perform self-password reset from the Windows Logon Screen or from the logon page of Adaxes Web Interface. You can also integrate the feature with your own sites and web applications if they use Active Directory for user authentication.

Self-Password Reset

For details, see Configure Password Self-Service.

Identity Verification Methods

Security is the most important concern when delegating rights to users. It is crucial to guarantee that a person who initiates a password reset is really eligible for this. To check users' identity, Adaxes uses robust identity-verification methods: Security Questions & Answers and SMS Verification. To get access to self-service password reset, a user must answer a number of security questions, and/or enter a verification code sent to their mobile phone by Adaxes.

SMS Verification

Security Questions

Security Measures

To prevent hacker attacks that aim to get access to the system by guessing answers to security questions or applying brute force attacks, Adaxes uses the following security measures:

• Blocking user accounts after a certain number of failed authentication attempts.
• Sending email notifications to users every time their passwords are reset via the Self-Password Reset system. Users are prompted to contact an administrator in case they did not reset the password.
• Captcha – a word verification image that prevents brute force attacks.
• Statistics – helps to track failed password reset attempts and localize the source of possible attacks.

Statistics

To monitor the password reset and enrollment activities, Adaxes equips you with very proverful reporting capabilities. Using the reporting feature, you can:

• Track enrolled and not enrolled users. It helps you monitor the enrollment process and take necessary actions in case of low enrollment activity.
• Trace failed and successful password resets. By monitoring the failed attempts, you can localize the source of possible attacks and take preventive measures.
• Handle user accounts blocked after a certain number of failed authentication attempts.

Automatic User Enrollment

If Q&A verification is enabled, users need to enroll to the self-password reset service. If your organization stores user-specific data (Social Security numbers, places of birth, etc.) in a datasource like an HR database, you can configure Adaxes to enroll users automatically by pre-loading the data into their Q&A profiles. For this purpose, you can use the following PowerShell cmdlets:

• New-AdmPasswordSelfServiceEnrollment

  Example:

  $question = "What are the last 5 digits of your credit card?"
  $answer = "12345"
  New-AdmPasswordSelfServiceEnrollment JohnSmith -QuestionsAndAnswers
  @{$question=$answer} -AdaxesService localhost
  

• Remove-AdmPasswordSelfServiceEnrollment

  Example:

  Remove-AdmPasswordSelfServiceEnrollment JohnSmith -AdaxesService localhost

The information in the datasource used for automated enrollment can be changed or updated. To enable automatic creation of Q&A profiles for new users and updating existing ones, you can automate the synchronization with the datasource by activating the built-in scheduled task named Self-Password Reset Enroller. This task runs a PowerShell script for automated enrollment on a predefined schedule. To activate the task, you need to enable it and modify the script to use your datasource.

For details, see Autoenroll Users for Self-Password Reset.

Scheduled Tasks

The new version of Adaxes introduces a new useful feature called Scheduled Tasks. With its help, you can automate the launch of a wide range of operations on a predefined schedule. Such operations can include sending expiration notifications, deleting inactive accounts, maintaining group membership, and much more.

For details, see Schedule Tasks for Active Directory Management.

Below you will find the most burning problems that can be solved with the help of Scheduled Tasks.

Password Expiration Notifications

For users, passwords always expire unexpectedly. It would be great to inform them about password expiration beforehand. With the help of the built-in Scheduled Task named Password Expiration Notifier, you can automate sending of email or SMS notifications to inform users about password expiration in advance.

Account Expiration Notifications

With the help of the Account Expiration Notifier task, you can enable automated sending of account expiration notifications to users and their managers.

Automated Cleanup of Inactive Users and Computers

Active Directory may contain a lot of accounts that are not used for a long time. Some of them are accounts left after employee dismissal or computer removal and not required any longer, and some can be still in use, but used very seldom. To automate deletion of the inactive accounts, it is important to introduce the means of distinguishing inactive accounts from accounts used occasionally.

To introduce strong and reliable mechanism of inactive account deleting, Adaxes provides two built-in Scheduled Tasks: Inactive Computer Deleter and Inactive User Deleter.

Inactive Computer Deleter

For details, see Delete Inactive Computers.

Inactive User Deleter

For details, see Delete Inactive Computers.

Inactive User Deleter

For details, see Automatically deprovision inactive users.

Automated Management of Group Membership

Now you can significantly improve the automated management of group membership. For example, you can automate adding users located under a specific OU to a group associated with this OU.

Approvals for Scheduled Task Actions

A very important feature of Scheduled Tasks is the ability to control their execution by submitting specific task actions for approval. Actions that require approval will not be executed until approved by an authorized person.

SMS Support

Now, with the help of Adaxes it is possible to send SMS messages to Active Directory users.

SMS Verification on Password Reset

To perform a password reset requested by phone, it is crucial for a Help Desk operator to verify the user's identity. For this purpose, Adaxes allows sending SMS verification code to the user's mobile phone during password reset.

Automated SMS Sending

SMS messages can be sent automatically by Business Rules, Custom Commands and Scheduled Tasks as a notification about an action performed. This will help you, for example, automatically inform administrators about new users added to groups, send notifications to users whose account options have been changed, send new passwords to users, and much more.

In advanced cases, it is possible to send SMS messages from a PowerShell script:

		$Context.SendSms($mobileNumber, $text)

Enhanced AD Management and Automation Features

Execute Custom Command Action

Now Custom Commands can be executed from other Custom Commands, Business Rules and Scheduled Tasks. It allows you to create one Custom Command and execute it, for example, after a user is created or updated, on a schedule, or manually.

Value References in Conditions

Now you can use value references in conditions. It is helpful in case you need a condition to include the information contained in the AD object properties.

Value References in 'before create' and 'after delete' Actions

Now Adaxes allows using AD object properties before the creation or after deletion of an object. Thus, for example, you can pass the information about not yet created or already deleted objects to PowerShell scripts.

New Conditions

Inactive Period	With the help of this condition, you can verify if the user or computer is inactive more than/less than the specified period.
Account/Password Expiration	With the help of this condition, you can verify the expiration status of the user's account or password

Customization of Approval Notifications

The new version of Adaxes allows customizing templates for email notifications sent as a part of approval-based workflow. For all the notifications, you can edit the subject, header and footer as well as specify font and text size.

Web Interface Improvements

• The visual look of the Web Interface has been improved significantly.
• Added the ability to display user images in search results and object grids.
• Added the ability to customize the footer of the web pages.
• Now it is possible to change the Web Interface icon (favicon).

New Virtual Properties

In the new version of Adaxes, you can use the following virtual properties in value references:

Filtering in Logging

The new version of Adaxes allows you to filter the information stored in the Adaxes service log. You can filter by operation type, by initiator type, by target object type or by initiator host.