The prompt=login mechanism can be subverted by simply stripping the parameter as it passes through the user agent (browser) and is only good for providing a UX hint to the provider (OP) in cases when the (RP) wants to display a link like: “Hi Josh. Not you? Click here.” However, you should not rely on it to validate that a fresh authentication took place. To mitigate this, the client must validate that re-authentication has taken place using the auth_time claim if re-authentication is whymax_agewas requested. This claim will be included automatically in the when prompt-login or max_age=0 parameters are given in the authentication request. You need to pass the max_age parameter to the Authorization API /authorize endpoint. If you use Auth0.js or Lock, you can set the parameter in the appropriate options of the library. How you implement re-authentication depends on your specific use-case. Make a distinction between simple re-authentication for sensitive operations vs. step-up (i.e. ) for sensitive operations. Both are valid security measures. The former requires the end user to re-enter their password, whereas the latter requires them to use a pre-configured means of multifactor authentication as well.

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Limitations of prompt=login parameters

The OIDC spec defines the prompt=login parameter that can be used to trigger re-authentication UI (usually a login prompt):
promptOPTIONAL: Space delimited, case sensitive list of ASCII string values that specifies whether the authorization server prompts the end-user for re-authentication and consent. The defined values are:loginThe authorization server should prompt the end-user for re-authentication. If it cannot re-authenticate the end-user, it must return an error, typically login_required.
However, there is an issue with using this parameter to ensure re-authentication: the RP has no way to validate that a re-authentication action has taken place. Let’s inspect the traffic to understand why. The flow for an authentication request from the RP is as follows: 
https://mydomain.auth0.com/authorize?
client_id=abcd1234
&redirect_uri= https://mydomain.com/callback

&scope=openid profile
&response_type=id_token
&prompt=login
Upon successful authentication by the AS, the RP will have an ID token delivered: 
{
  "nickname": "user",
  "name": "user@mydomain.auth0.com",
  "updated_at": "2019-04-01T14:43:03.445Z",
  "iss": "https://jcain0.auth0.com/",
  "sub": "auth0|l33t",
  "aud": "abcd1234",
  "iat": 1554129793,
  "exp": 1554165793
}
The trusted identity document returned by the AS has no claims that validate when the last login occurred. This becomes a problem when the initial authorization request comes in the form of a 302 redirect through the end user’s browser. If a malicious actor wants to skip the re-authentication step requested by the RP, they simply have to remove the prompt=login parameter and the RP doesn’t know the difference in the fields contained in the ID token. Here’s a diagram of a simplified implicit flow using the prompt=loginparameter:
Force Re-Authentication OIDC Implicit Flow
Note that all the end-user has to do is remove the prompt=login parameter and the re-authentication step can be skipped:
Simplified Implicit Flow Remove prompt=login
The token(s) returned from the first flow above will be identical to the token(s) returned from the second flow. The RP has no specification-defined way of verifying that re-authentication has taken place, and therefore cannot trust that a prompt=login has actually yielded a re-authentication.

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max_age authentication request parameter

Unlike prompt=login, the max_age authentication request parameter provides a mechanism whereby RPs can positively confirm that re-authentication has taken place within a given time interval. The OIDC spec states:
max_ageOPTIONAL: Maximum Authentication Age. Specifies the allowable elapsed time in seconds since the last time the end-user was actively authenticated by the OP. If the elapsed time is greater than this value, the OP must attempt to actively re-authenticate the end-user. (The max_age request parameter corresponds to the OpenID 2.0 PAPE max_auth_age request parameter.) When max_age is used, the ID token returned must include an auth_time claim value.
The last sentence in the definition is the most important part. When max_age is requested by the RP, an auth_time claim must be present in the RP. This means that max_age can be used in one of two ways:
  • To enforce a minimum session freshness: If an app has a requirement that users must re-authenticate once per day, this can be enforced in the context of a much longer session by providing max_age with a value. These are defined in seconds.
  • To force an immediate re-authentication: If an app requires that a user re-authenticate prior to access, provide a value of 0 for the max_age parameter and the AS will force a fresh login.
This requirement is described as follows:
OIDC re-authentication max_age flow
Note that the RP receives a token with the proper amount of information to validate whether or not re-authentication has taken place. The RP can now consult the auth_time claim in the ID token to determine whether or not the max_age parameter it requested was fulfilled. In this way, the max_age=0 parameter is impervious to the same kind of client tampering that could subvert the prompt=login parameter.
Keep in mind that it’s solely up to the RP to validate that it is receiving an ID token with an appropriate auth_time. This extra validation will need to be covered by application authors and frameworks making use of the max_age parameter.

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Use auth_time claims

We’ve established that the OIDC spec provides the max_age parameter as a way to positively confirm a re-authentication has taken place, but prompt=login does not. This does not present very secure options if you want to force a re-authentication:
  • prompt=login: Only include the prompt parameter and not validate that the AS actually re-authenticated.
  • prompt=login & max_age=999999: Include an arbitrary max_age such that an auth_time claim is present. You can validate a re-authentication took place, but the parameters get messy.
  • max_age=0: Effectively force a login prompt using only the max_age parameter. Note that a recent spec update further clarified this parameter, stating it is effectively the same as prompt=login. This one is not feasible since it blends what should be a UX parameter with a session maintenance parameter.
Instead, Auth0 has made a choice to send the auth_time claim in the ID token when responding to aprompt=loginrequest parameter. This means that you have the option use prompt=login AND validate that a re-authentication took place.

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auth_time validation example

You must be sure to implement validation to ensure a re-authentication has taken place. You must validate that a proper auth_time has been returned.
The following example uses the passport-auth0-openidconnect module to demonstrate how to validate re-authentication. The first (and simplest) way is to add the max_age=0 option to the Auth0OidcStrategy: 
var strategy = new Auth0OidcStrategy(
  {
    domain: process.env.AUTH0_DOMAIN,
    clientID: process.env.AUTH0_CLIENT_ID,
    clientSecret: process.env.AUTH0_CLIENT_SECRET,
    callbackURL: process.env.AUTH0_CALLBACK_URL || 'http://localhost:5000/callback',
    max_age: 0
  },
  function(req, issuer, audience, profile, accessToken, refreshToken, params, cb) {
    // No extra validation required!
    return cb(null, profile);
  });
Notice that no further validation steps are required as the strategy already handles validation of the max_age parameter: 
// https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-basic-1_0.html#IDTokenValidation - check 8.
if (meta.params.max_age && (!jwtClaims.auth_time || ((meta.timestamp - meta.params.max_age) > jwtClaims.auth_time))) {
  return self.error(new Error('auth_time in id_token not included or too old'));
}
You can also use prompt=login in the same context, but since the standard does not require an auth_time to accompany the ID token response, you must handle the validation manually. So, the strategy constructor would be: 
var strategy = new Auth0OidcStrategy(
  {
    domain: process.env.AUTH0_DOMAIN,
    clientID: process.env.AUTH0_CLIENT_ID,
    clientSecret: process.env.AUTH0_CLIENT_SECRET,
    callbackURL: process.env.AUTH0_CALLBACK_URL || 'http://localhost:5000/callback',
    prompt: 'login'
  },
  function(req, issuer, audience, profile, accessToken, refreshToken, params, cb) {
    const tenSecondsAgo = (Date.now() / 1000) - 10;
    if (isNaN(profile.auth_time) || profile.auth_time < tenSecondsAgo) {
      return cb('prompt=login requested, but auth_time is greater than 10 seconds old', null);
    }

    return cb(null, profile);
  });
Unlike max_age=0, the client must manually perform validation on the auth_time parameter. To learn more, read Use auth_time claims.
The example above represents a simplified proof-of-concept (it must have authenticated in the last 10 seconds). Ideally, if you want to validate that a re-authentication has occurred, you would need to:
  1. Store the time that the initial authentication request was made.
  2. Upon authentication response, retrieve the time at which the request was sent.
  3. Compare the original authentication request time with the auth_time claim to ensure auth_time is a later timestamp.
Auth0 does not recommend that the approach used in the example be followed in any production systems.

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Known issues

Auth0 can only guarantee that an exchange took place with the upstream . This may be through the user actually signing in to a third-party identity provider or perhaps the user already had a session and didn’t have to sign in again. Either way, Auth0’s exchange with the upstream identity provider will result in an updated auth_time. Forcing re-authentication within the upstream identity provider is not something Auth0 supports because not all providers support this. The diagram below presents an example flow for a user who chooses to reauthenticate with a federated connection:
Federated connections do not force re-authentication diagram
This method assumes you use database connections. External identity providers may or may not support forcing re-authentication. Using prompt=login or prompt=consent is generally a way to indicate an external (social) identity provider to reauthenticate a user, but Auth0 cannot enforce this.
Don’t rely on client-side verification (i.e. in the browser) of the ID token or auth_time to prevent sensitive operations.

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Learn more