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Account Protection (Lua Subject Source)

The Account Protection subject source protects individual accounts under suspicious activity. It applies a progressive delay (backoff) and signals Step-Up/Challenge to frontends. Starting with v1.10.0, enforcement is disabled by default (dry-run): requests are not blocked unless explicitly enabled.

What it does​

  • Evaluates long-window, per-account metrics (24h/7d) and attack flags:
    • uniq_ips_24h, uniq_ips_7d
    • fails_24h, fails_7d
    • distributed-attack participation flag
  • Applies progressive backoff (sleep) to slow down automated attacks.
  • Records protection mode state in Redis and exposes Step-Up hints for HTTP/OIDC frontends.
  • Optionally rejects unauthenticated requests while protection is active (enforcement mode).

Headers and Redis keys​

When protection is active, the subject source sets:

  • HTTP headers (for HTTP/OIDC flows):

    • X-Nauthilus-Protection: stepup
    • X-Nauthilus-Protection-Reason: <comma-separated reasons>
    • X-Nauthilus-Protection-Mode: dry-run (only when enforcement is disabled)

  • Redis keys:

    • ntc:acct:<username>:protection (HASH: active, reason, backoff_level, until_ts, updated)
    • ntc:acct:<username>:stepup (HASH: required, reason, until_ts, updated)
    • ntc:acct:protection_active (SET of usernames currently under protection)

Configuration​

Environment variables (thresholds and timing)​

NameDefaultDescription
PROTECT_THRESH_UNIQ2412Min unique scoped IPs in 24h to trigger
PROTECT_THRESH_UNIQ7D30Min unique scoped IPs in 7d to trigger
PROTECT_THRESH_FAIL247Min failed attempts in 24h to trigger
PROTECT_THRESH_FAIL7D15Min failed attempts in 7d to trigger
PROTECT_BACKOFF_MIN_MS150Minimum backoff per step (ms)
PROTECT_BACKOFF_MAX_MS1000Maximum backoff per step (ms)
PROTECT_BACKOFF_MAX_LEVEL5Backoff steps until capped
PROTECT_MODE_TTL_SEC3600Protection mode TTL in seconds

Enforcement switch (v1.10.0)​

NameDefaultDescription
PROTECT_ENFORCE_REJECTfalseIf true, unauthenticated requests are rejected while under protection. If false (or unset), the
subject source runs in dry‑run: applies delay and Step‑Up hints, but does not block pre‑auth.

Scoped IP normalization (cluster-wide dedup)​

Per-account unique IP metrics and attack heuristics work best with IP scoping to avoid counting IPv6 privacy addresses and large NAT pools as distinct clients. Nauthilus exposes scoping controls to Lua environment sources in v1.10.0:

  • auth.backends.lua.backend.default.ip_scoping_v6_cidr (e.g., 64)
  • auth.backends.lua.backend.default.ip_scoping_v4_cidr (e.g., 24)

See also: Lua API nauthilus_misc.scoped_ip below.

Frontend integration (CAPTCHA/Step‑Up)​

Use the headers to enforce a challenge in your IdP or reverse proxy. The Step‑Up/Redis flags allow consistent UX across protocols.

Example (pseudo):

if ($http_x_nauthilus_protection = "stepup") {
  return 403;
}

In dry‑run, prefer showing a CAPTCHA/MFA step based on headers without hard-blocking at Nauthilus.

Lua API and metrics​

  • Prometheus counters incremented by the subject source:

    • security_stepup_challenges_issued_total
    • security_slow_attack_suspicions_total

  • Lua API for scoping: nauthilus_misc.scoped_ip(ctx, ip)

    • Contexts: "lua_generic" (default), "rwp", "tolerations"
  • Release Notes → 1.10 → Security and protection
  • Configuration → Lua Backend → ip_scoping_* options
  • Configuration → Reference → PROTECT_ENFORCE_REJECT