Status: Not Authorized. Session is not authorized for this security level

Products

• CA Single Sign On Secure Proxy Server (SiteMinder)
• CA Single Sign On SOA Security Manager (SiteMinder)
• CA Single Sign-On

Issue/Introduction

Users are being rechallenged for credentials and we are seeing the message "Status: Not Authorized. Session is not authorized for this security level" in the policy server audit logs.  What can cause this message?

Environment

Any

Resolution

A session's authentication level is determined by the authentication scheme used when the user first logs into a protected Single Sign on resource.  This log message "Status: Not Authorized. Session is not authorized for this security level" is indicating the user has a valid session, but it was established at a security level lower than the protected resource they are now trying to access.  If this is unexpected, review where the user first logged in and adjust the security level of that authentication scheme.