Support Article
SAML authentication failing: SAML token security failure
SA-16190
Summary
Sporadically in a staging production environment, a SAML authentication error is received in Pega 7.1.7.
Error Messages
"Caught Exception while validating SAML2 Authentication response protocol : SAML token security failure"
Caused by: org.apache.wss4j.common.ext.WSSecurityException: SAML token security failure
at com.pega.pegarules.integration.engine.internal.sso.saml.SAMLv2ResponseProtocolValidator.validateAssertion(SAMLv2ResponseProtocolValidator.java:286)
at com.pega.pegarules.integration.engine.internal.sso.saml.SAMLv2ResponseProtocolValidator.validate(SAMLv2ResponseProtocolValidator.java:153)
Steps to Reproduce
When testing logins attempts, one out of every five attempts, results in the error.
Root Cause
When the login worked the SAMLResponse contained the X509 certificate XML node. When the login failed the SAMLResponse did not contains the X509 certificate.
The environment has two IDP servers with a load balancer in front of them. One of the IDP servers was missing the configuration option to return the X509 certificate xml node within the SAMLResponse.
Resolution
A defect or configuration issue in the operating environment caused the problem.
Once both IDP servers were configured to return the X509 certificate xml node the issue gets resolved.
Pega also provided two patches to client to reach to the latest PRPC SAML code for Pega 7.1.7: Hfix-20958, Hfix-22795.
Published January 31, 2016 - Updated October 8, 2020
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