Single Sign-On (SSO)
Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication method that enables users to securely access multiple applications using a single set of login credentials. This approach significantly streamlines the authentication process across various systems, reducing the need for users to remember and manage multiple passwords. Centralizing the login process in this way enhances user convenience and maintains an elevated level of security.
As a key component of enterprise access management and digital identity security, SSO integrates seamlessly with identity and access management (IAM) frameworks. These frameworks are designed to verify a user's identity once, at the initial login, and then grant access to all the applications and platforms they are authorized to use. This integration ensures that the authentication process is both efficient and secure, as it minimizes the risk of weak or reused passwords, which are common sources of security vulnerabilities.
For organizations, implementing SSO offers a multitude of benefits. One of the most significant advantages is the improvement in staff efficiency. Employees can focus more on their tasks and less on the time-consuming process of logging into multiple systems. This can lead to increased productivity and a better overall user experience.
Another important benefit is the reduction in IT help desk costs. With fewer passwords reset requests, IT teams can allocate their resources more effectively, focusing on more critical tasks rather than routine password management. This not only saves time but also reduces the operational costs associated with maintaining a secure and functional IT environment.
Single sign-on plays a crucial role in ensuring compliance with various regulations and standards. For instance, industries that handle sensitive data, such as healthcare and finance, must adhere to stringent regulations like HIPAA and GDPR. These regulations require robust security measures to protect personal and confidential information.
Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication method that enables users to securely access multiple applications using a single set of login credentials. This approach significantly streamlines the authentication process across various systems, reducing the need for users to remember and manage multiple passwords. Centralizing the login process in this way enhances user convenience and maintains an elevated level of security.
As a key component of enterprise access management and digital identity security, SSO integrates seamlessly with identity and access management (IAM) frameworks. These frameworks are designed to verify a user's identity once, at the initial login, and then grant access to all the applications and platforms they are authorized to use. This integration ensures that the authentication process is both efficient and secure, as it minimizes the risk of weak or reused passwords, which are common sources of security vulnerabilities.
For organizations, implementing SSO offers a multitude of benefits. One of the most significant advantages is the improvement in staff efficiency. Employees can focus more on their tasks and less on the time-consuming process of logging into multiple systems. This can lead to increased productivity and a better overall user experience.
Another important benefit is the reduction in IT help desk costs. With fewer passwords reset requests, IT teams can allocate their resources more effectively, focusing on more critical tasks rather than routine password management. This not only saves time but also reduces the operational costs associated with maintaining a secure and functional IT environment.
Single sign-on plays a crucial role in ensuring compliance with various regulations and standards. For instance, industries that handle sensitive data, such as healthcare and finance, must adhere to stringent regulations like HIPAA and GDPR. These regulations require robust security measures to protect personal and confidential information.
Expanding the usefulness of SSO
Low-code SSO implementation is an option for organizations that want to simplify and accelerate the deployment of single sign-on (SSO) solutions without extensive custom coding. By leveraging intuitive interfaces and prebuilt components, IT teams can extend SSO capabilities across a wider range of applications and services, ensuring consistent access controls while reducing development time. Low-code SSO implementation also makes the development process accessible to users with limited coding experience.
Low-code platforms are particularly valuable for enterprises looking to modernize SSO infrastructure to meet evolving security and usability requirements. Integrating with an authorization server through low-code platforms improves authentication workflows , policy enforcement, and scalability, while maintaining a secure user experience across digital environments.
Many organizations seek to add SSO to legacy applications to improve security and user experience but hesitate because those applications lack native support for federated identity standards. Securing older, business-critical systems that were not designed with modern authentication protocols in mind requires legacy application protection.
On-premises application protection has become a key strategy in these cases, enabling enterprises to safeguard internal systems while bridging the gap between modern identity providers and outdated platforms. Implementing non-standard application security solutions, such as SSO gateways, reverse proxies, or protocol translators, allows these legacy systems to leverage open standards such as Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), or OpenID Connect (OIDC), without the need for extensive redevelopment.
SAML-based SSO , in particular, is a very common authentication method adopted by service providers who are licensing or providing access to a multitude of content libraries . Traditional SSO is not always feasible for independent systems with limited modification capabilities. With minimal changes to existing systems, SAML-based SSO can create a space for an identity provider and utilize SAML tokens to grant appropriate access. These integrations ensure backward compatibility and enable consistent identity management practices across both modern and legacy environments, reducing vulnerabilities and simplifying access control.
