RSA SecurID Cookie Expires Frequently, and Clients Are Repeatedly Prompted to Authenticate

Assume that you publish a Web site in Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2000 Service Pack 1 (SP1) by using the following configuration:

• You install the Web filter for authentication for RSA SecurID from Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2000 Feature Pack 1.
  
  -and-
• You enable the Web access authentication set for your Web publishing rule, and then you click Cookies Expire If Not Used Within the Specified Time.

When users access the Web site, their sessions time out after about 1 minute (approximately 60 seconds), and they are repeatedly prompted to reauthenticate. The expiration time that appears in the Expiration Time box (by default, 15 minutes) on the RSA SecurID tab in the properties of the Web publishing rule is not enforced. This problem occurs even though the user is actively viewing the Web site.

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next software update that contains this hotfix.

If the hotfix is available for download, there is a "Hotfix download available" section at the top of this Knowledge Base article. If this section does not appear, contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support to obtain the hotfix.

Note If additional issues occur or if any troubleshooting is required, you might have to create a separate service request. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for this specific hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Customer Service and Support telephone numbers or to create a separate service request, visit the following Microsoft Web site: Note The "Hotfix download available" form displays the languages for which the hotfix is available. If you do not see your language, it is because a hotfix is not available for that language. The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel. Note This hotfix also applies to the French, German, Spanish, and Japanese-language versions of ISA Server.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section of this article.

RSA authentication is implemented in the following way in ISA Server 2000: When a user successfully logs on to the Web site, the user receives a SecurID cookie from ISA Server 2000. This cookie has an expiration time, and therefore, when the cookie expires, the client receives a SecurID logon page instead of the requested object. Sometimes this behavior may cause a problem. For example, ISA Server 2000 may return a logon page during the loading of an embedded image. To resolve this issue, an option is available to keep the user's SecurID cookie refreshed if it is frequently used. This is enabled by using the Cookies Expire If Not Used Within the Specified Time option on the RSA SecurID tab in the Web publishing rule properties. If this option is selected and the client is not idle for the specified time, ISA Server 2000 adds an updated cookie header to each client response. This functionality makes sure that the sequence of a client’s requests (loading frames, embedded images, and others) will be successful after the client has successfully logged on to the Web site.