Internship: Securing a TV Platform

Description of Assignment

Identity and Access Management (IAM) plays a crucial role in securing modern digital platforms. In this internship assignment, you will use Curity as an Access Management tool to set up a secure registration and access structure for applications or clients within a platform environment.

A fictional customer, IdenTV, wants to develop a secure way to connect its digital platform to external applications. It is looking for a solution that uses Curity to manage registration, authentication and authorisation.

This scenario involves a set-top box: a device that users connect to their television at home to access digital content such as streaming services or interactive applications. For this assignment, the set-top box will be emulated, meaning that a software simulation of the device will be used to reproduce how it operates and communicates with the platform. The set-top box acts as a client that connects to the IdenTV platform. Because the box has access to personal and potentially sensitive data, communication between the set-top box and the platform must be properly secured.

The assignment is therefore to design a secure IAM architecture in which the set-top box registers as a client with Curity and subsequently accesses the platform through standardised protocols such as OAuth and OpenID Connect.

What will you do?

• Set up your own Curity environment for testing and development.
• Enable end users to register their box easily and securely through a secure protocol.
• Ensure secure communication between Curity and the registered applications.
• Implement resource protection so that only authorised clients can access specific endpoints or data.
• Document the entire process and explain how it can be readily applied in a production environment.

What technical skills will you learn?

• Setting up and managing a Curity Identity Server.
• Secure communication between platforms and applications.
• Dynamic client registration
• Certificate management and mTLS.
• Working with federation protocols such as OAuth 2.0, OIDC and SAML.
• Identity and Access Management

What soft skills will you develop?

• Communication skills: reporting and documenting clearly and professionally, and collaborating with colleagues and stakeholders.
• Collaboration: working effectively within a multidisciplinary team in an agile environment.
• Problem-solving: analysing technical challenges and resolving them independently or in consultation with others.
• Self-organisation: taking responsibility for your tasks, planning and progress.
• Critical thinking: substantiating your choices and continuously improving based on feedback and evaluation.
• Customer focus: considering user needs and the business context when designing solutions.

Project Methodology

• The internship assignments follow the Scrum project methodology to provide a structured and efficient approach to tasks and subtasks.
• This reflects IdentIT’s approach to projects.
• Scrum is a flexible framework that:
  • Promotes collaboration
  • Encourages adaptability
  • Ensures transparency.
• The work is organised into time-boxed iterations called sprints:
  • Each sprint lasts 2 to 3 weeks.
  • Each sprint has clear objectives and tasks.
• At the start of each sprint:
  • The intern(s) and supervisor(s) hold a sprint planning session.
  • The objectives are defined.
  • A sprint backlog is created.
• During the sprint:
  • Weekly stand-up meetings are held.
  • Progress is discussed.
  • Any obstacles are identified and addressed.
• At the end of each sprint:
  • A sprint review is held.
  • Where possible, a demo is given.
  • Feedback is collected.
• Scrum contributes to a collaborative and adaptable working environment.
• The aim is to achieve the best possible results within the given timeframe.

MVP

The minimum feature set we expect is:

• A set-top box that can register
• Secure communication between the client and Curity
• Enforcement of authorisation rights based on the signed-in user to control access to specific content

Expected Outcomes

The following deliverables are expected at the end of the assignment:

• A technical analysis of the problem
• The architecture of the required components
• An implementation that meets the MVP requirements, plus any additional features
• A demo of the end-to-end solution
• Documentation