2-Factor Auth Using Email on FortiGate

Putting together a presentation I am giving to some customers and decided I wanted to put together an article with a topic that is rarely discussed.  The FortiGate firewall can do two-factor authentication via email, and the beauty is it is included.  No additional license is required.  It is a very simple set up.  The downside to this method is similar to the SMS type OTP, if you do not have good signal, you may not get the email.  Let’s get started.

Configuring Email Server

You can either use the Fortinet email server that comes configured or you can add your own.

config system email-server
    set server "notification.fortinet.net"
    set port 465
    set security smtps
end

You can also see this in the GUI

These settings are under System then Settings

Creating the User

This user will need to be created on the CLI

config user local
    edit "epass"
       set type password
       set two-factor email
       set email-to "manny@infosecmonkey.org"
       set passwd SuperSecretPassword
    next
end

In my example, the username is epass and the type is password .  The other options for type are:

LAB-FW-01 (epass) # set type 
password Password authentication.
radius RADIUS server authentication.
tacacs+ TACACS+ server authentication.
ldap LDAP server authentication.

The two-factor type is email these are the other options

LAB-FW-01 (epass) # set two-factor 
disable disable
fortitoken FortiToken
email Email authentication code.
sms SMS authentication code.
fortitoken-cloud FortiToken Cloud Service.

The email is the email address that will receive the OTP.  And finally, we have the password the user will need to enter before the email gets set to them.

I used my iPhone for the test but it will work with FortiClient for desktops as well.

Here I enter my username and password and hit OK

I can look at my email now and get the One Time Password or OTP

Here we can see the OTP is 519915

Hope this helps.