Tutorial: Microsoft Entra SSO integration with Cobalt

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate Cobalt with Microsoft Entra ID. When you integrate Cobalt with Microsoft Entra ID, you can:

  • Control in Microsoft Entra ID who has access to Cobalt.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Cobalt with their Microsoft Entra accounts.
  • Manage your accounts in one central location.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need the following items:

  • A Microsoft Entra subscription. If you don't have a subscription, you can get a free account.
  • Cobalt single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.

Scenario description

In this tutorial, you configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO in a test environment.

  • Cobalt supports SP initiated SSO.

Note

Identifier of this application is a fixed string value so only one instance can be configured in one tenant.

To configure the integration of Cobalt into Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add Cobalt from the gallery to your list of managed SaaS apps.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > New application.
  3. In the Add from the gallery section, type Cobalt in the search box.
  4. Select Cobalt from results panel and then add the app. Wait a few seconds while the app is added to your tenant.

Alternatively, you can also use the Enterprise App Configuration Wizard. In this wizard, you can add an application to your tenant, add users/groups to the app, assign roles, as well as walk through the SSO configuration as well. Learn more about Microsoft 365 wizards.

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO for Cobalt

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Cobalt using a test user called B.Simon. For SSO to work, you need to establish a link relationship between a Microsoft Entra user and the related user in Cobalt.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Cobalt, perform the following steps:

  1. Configure Microsoft Entra SSO - to enable your users to use this feature.
    1. Create a Microsoft Entra test user - to test Microsoft Entra single sign-on with B.Simon.
    2. Assign the Microsoft Entra test user - to enable B.Simon to use Microsoft Entra single sign-on.
  2. Configure Cobalt SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create Cobalt test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in Cobalt that is linked to the Microsoft Entra representation of user.
  3. Test SSO - to verify whether the configuration works.

Configure Microsoft Entra SSO

Follow these steps to enable Microsoft Entra SSO.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.

  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Cobalt > Single sign-on.

  3. On the Select a single sign-on method page, select SAML.

  4. On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, click the pencil icon for Basic SAML Configuration to edit the settings.

    Edit Basic SAML Configuration

  5. On the Basic SAML Configuration section, perform the following step:

    In the Sign-on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://brightside-prod-<INSTANCENAME>.cobaltdl.com

    Note

    The value is not real. Update the value with the actual Sign-On URL. Contact Cobalt Client support team to get the value. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section.

  6. Cobalt application expects the SAML assertions in a specific format, which requires you to add custom attribute mappings to your SAML token attributes configuration. The following screenshot shows the list of default attributes.

    image

  7. In addition to above, Cobalt application expects few more attributes to be passed back in SAML response which are shown below. These attributes are also pre populated but you can review them as per your requirement.

    Name Source Attribute
    Mail user.mail
    Othermail user.othermail
  8. On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, in the SAML Signing Certificate section, find Certificate (Base64) and select Download to download the certificate and save it on your computer.

    The Certificate download link

  9. On the Set up Cobalt section, copy the appropriate URL(s) based on your requirement.

    Copy configuration URLs

Create a Microsoft Entra test user

In this section, you'll create a test user called B.Simon.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a User Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Users > All users.
  3. Select New user > Create new user, at the top of the screen.
  4. In the User properties, follow these steps:
    1. In the Display name field, enter B.Simon.
    2. In the User principal name field, enter the username@companydomain.extension. For example, B.Simon@contoso.com.
    3. Select the Show password check box, and then write down the value that's displayed in the Password box.
    4. Select Review + create.
  5. Select Create.

Assign the Microsoft Entra test user

In this section, you'll enable B.Simon to use single sign-on by granting access to Cobalt.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Cobalt.
  3. In the app's overview page, select Users and groups.
  4. Select Add user/group, then select Users and groups in the Add Assignment dialog.
    1. In the Users and groups dialog, select B.Simon from the Users list, then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen.
    2. If you are expecting a role to be assigned to the users, you can select it from the Select a role dropdown. If no role has been set up for this app, you see "Default Access" role selected.
    3. In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.

Configure Cobalt SSO

  1. Login to the Cobalt website as an administrator.

  2. Select Settings on the left menu.

  3. Select Identity & Access, and select Enable in SAML 2.0.

    Screenshot for Settings page

  4. Perform the following steps in the SAML 2.0 section.

    Screenshot for configuration page

    1. In the IDP ISSUER URL textbox, paste the Microsoft Entra Identifier value which you copied previously.
    2. In the IDP TARGET URL textbox, paste the Login URL value which you copied previously.
    3. Open the downloaded Certificate (Base64) into Notepad and paste the content into the IDP CERTIFICATE textbox.
  5. Click SAVE.

Note

Please follow this article for more information on how to configure SSO on Cobalt side.

Create Cobalt test user

  1. Login to the Cobalt website as an administrator.
  2. Navigate to the People -> Organization and select Invite Users.
  3. In the overlay that appears, specify the email addresses of users that you want to invite. Enter the email, and then select Add or press Enter.
  4. Use commas to separate multiple email addresses.
  5. For each user, select a role: Member or Owner.
  6. Both members and owners have access to all assets and pentests of an organization.
  7. Select Invite to confirm.

Test SSO

In this section, you test your Microsoft Entra single sign-on configuration with following options.

  • Click on Test this application, this will redirect to Cobalt Sign-on URL where you can initiate the login flow.

  • Go to Cobalt Sign-on URL directly and initiate the login flow from there.

  • You can use Microsoft My Apps. When you click the Cobalt tile in the My Apps, this will redirect to Cobalt Sign-on URL. For more information, see Microsoft Entra My Apps.

Next steps

After you configure Cobalt, you can enforce session control, which protects exfiltration and infiltration of your organization’s sensitive data in real time. Session control extends from Conditional Access. Learn how to enforce session control with Microsoft Cloud App Security.