Policy Types

Twingate has two types of Security Policies, both of which are used for different parts of the application. Different Policy types may have different rules available to them, based on what is appropriate for the use case.

• Resource Policies: These policies are applied to Resources at the time they are accessed by a user. Use these policies to apply extra security to more sensitive Resources on your Network. There is always one Default Policy which is applied to all new Groups by default. You can create additional Resource Policies in the Admin Console.
• Minimum Authentication Requirements: This policy is applied to all users of Twingate when they attempt to log into the network. Users must fulfill the criteria before attempting to access any Resources, even if those Resources have more permissive Security Policies. In addition to the Minimum Authentication Requirements, the device must meet either the minimum OS requirements or a Trusted Profile as specified in Device Security Guide.

There’s an additional Admin Console Security policy that can be configured. This is managed under the Settings tab. This policy is only applied to Twingate administrators when they attempt to sign into the Admin Console. Admins do not need to sign into Twingate to access the Admin Console, so the minimum authentication requirements are not applied here. See Admin Console Security for more information.

Rule Types

The following rule types may be applied to policies:

Policy Management

You can create a new Resource Policy by clicking the “Create Policy” button under Resource Policies.

You can edit new or existing Security Policies by selecting the Policy in the Policies tab. Here you can add new requirements and edit or remove existing requirements. Authentication Requirements specify the authentication needed for this policy specifically, and layers on top of broader Minimum Authentication Requirements. Device Security identifies which types of devices (all, Trusted Devices, or custom) will meet this policy. For more information, see Device Security Guide.

Security Policies are applied to Groups, which consist of users and Resources. If a user attempts to access a Resource and are in a Group with that Resource, they will have to fulfill any requirements in the Security Policy for that Group. By default, all Groups will use the Default Policy; you can change this by editing the Group.

Recommendations

Twingate recommends that you apply comparatively less strict policies to the Minimum Authentication Requirements and focus more security controls on the Resource Policies, especially those that are applied to more sensitive Resources. This will reduce the number of authentication or other security controls that users must go through, focusing them only on the times when they are actually accessing a protected Resource.