Northwestern IT Prepares for Updated MFA Login Experience – August 7

On Saturday, August 7, 2021, members of the Northwestern community may notice a slight change to the Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) login experience. Recently, Duo, our MFA vendor, introduced plans to deliver an updated look and feel to the MFA login page. This “Universal Prompt” is designed to make it easier for end-users to enroll an authenticated device, log in to MFA-enabled University services, and manage devices via self-service.

Although Duo has not confirmed a release date for the new login, Northwestern is taking steps to prepare. This first change in MFA will involve moving to a new protocol for WebSSO and Shibboleth/SAML federation. Interacting with Duo MFA is mainly unchanged, except that it will be hosted at duosecurity.com on an otherwise empty web page rather than embedded in an iframe with the application surrounding it. Moving away from using iframes will improve reliability and other cross-site content issues. Below, please view a side-by-side comparison of the new MFA experience.

Details about the Universal Prompt, including its use at Northwestern, will be provided to the University community as Duo offers more information.