Single Sign-On (SSO): The Essentials to Business Security and Accessibility

Let the business belong to any type of industry; it is a well-known fact that it requires many applications, websites and systems to perform critical business tasks and for a seamless administration. From project management systems, CRMs, Marketing, Bookkeeping, and Internal communication systems to Accounting tools, Analytics apps, and Software development tools, businesses need many applications for a smooth running of their everyday tasks.

Most businesses are taking up cloud-based working styles as it has many extensive advantages like remote working, balanced communication between branches and more . Cloud-based working systems come with both benefits and challenges. One of the main advantages: is that the portability of cloud apps makes it possible for anyone to work from anywhere with a stable internet connection, and the main challenge is data security.

Protecting sensitive business data becomes a top priority, as most business tasks and communication depend on the internet. But adding up additional security controls and multi-factor authentication will make the access point of the applications more complex.

It might require your employers and managers to sign in to multiple systems every day, which can probably push them into frustration and might affect their productivity. And another challenge is that it is hard to remember multiple credentials, and employers can lose track of them, resulting in IT administrators getting piled up with password resets requests.

Data security is a vital concern, and adequate security measures should be enabled, but it can’t done at the cost of your team’s increased frustration and productivity. The challenges with multiple sign-ins and credentials can be solved with Single Sign-On solutions (SSO). SSO is the appropriate solution to bolster security while maintaining end-user productivity.

With an SSO, your employees need not worry about losing track of multiple credentials of various applications, and your IT team can keenly focus on strategic support tasks.

Single Sign-On (SSO) is an authentication technology that allows users to promptly access multiple applications using a single set of credentials (Id and Password). Briefly stated, once the SSO has been set up, users can sign-on through the SSO gateway, which gives instant access to other configured apps, websites and systems that the organization is connected with.

DMG has been providing effective SSO solutions to businesses across industries, resulting in improved security and protection of organisational data. It has also essentially helped businesses let their employers have a solid painless experience accessing enterprise-related systems.

SSO systems work based on a security relationship that is established between the authority that carries the identity information and can authenticate the user (identity provider IdP) and the application the user wants to access (service provider SP). Instead of communicating the sensitive passwords back and forth across the internet, the user authenticates with the IdP, which creates a centralized session for the user. This session can be re-used by all other connected service providers and can be cryptographically validated.

So when an SSO-verified user tries to access another application, the SSO system provides the already existing session instead of requesting another login. This process provides the users with a seamless experience, allowing them to concentrate on their productivity rather remembering and entering the credentials.

The primary purpose of an SSO is to give the users the authentication to access various apps and resources within an organization’s systems using a pair of credentials. Along with this purpose, SSO solutions come with lot more advantages like

Single Sign-On (SSO) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) can work hand in hand. These two are the most entrusted solution available today to secure data. MFA is an authentication technology that requires the users to provide two or more verification credentials to get access.

Implementing SSO and MFA together can enhance security by limiting the frustration of users and also allows the IT department to monitor the network activity. While MFA maintains tight security and manages the user identity, SSO will increase the password strength and limit password fatigue.

At DMG, we recommend that businesses implement SSO and MFA as part of their cyber security strategy.

Social Logins and SSO are different authentication methods that allow the end-users to access the related systems and applications.

Social Login allows the users to log in to various websites and applications with a single click using their existing accounts from various social providers like Google, Hotmail, Facebook, etc.

Advantages of Social Logins and SSO for Business

Choosing the right SSO product can be quite tricky. There are multiple SSO products available in the market today. Every product comes with its own pros and cons. You need to understand what the solutions offer with regards to their features and select the one which satisfies your requirement. Here are a few factors that businesses need to consider when selecting an SSO product.

Along with these factors, you need to look for still few mandatory technical features like

In no particular order, we have listed the five best SSO products available in the market today

Compliance is one of the important drivers for deciding the SSO product. Depending on the business nature and customer data that needs to be stored in SSO, it has to be compliant with certain regulations. So, here is a comparison of SSO products based on compliance with regulations when the solution is hosted in an organised environment.

When compared, compliance being one of the major prerequisites of an SSO product, it is important for businesses to choose a product that is compliant with various broad regulations.

Pricing:

While comparing, all the five products have a different system of pricing, so depending on the other features, businesses need to choose a plan that will be best for them.

Protocol Support: When selecting an SSO product, it is important to check its relationship with various important protocols as they are the basic requirement to connect to other identity providers.

Almost all the SSO products support the most important protocols. Businesses can check on the protocols they require to connect with the identity providers and then select their SSO product.

MFA Support: We have already discussed how a combination of SSO and MFA will provide a multitude of user experiences and security. So it is important to check whether the SSO product is compatible with integrating MFA or not.

All the five SSO products support MFA through OTP via google authenticator and similar apps. Few products offer additional features like SMS, push notifications and more. Businesses can decide on what type of MFA will make their data more secure and choose an SSO accordingly.

Integrations: Integrations are the core necessity and basic feature required in an SSO product. Integrating all the applications and systems of a business with the SSO is a complicated process. So, SSO products need to provide extensive support that can save a lot of time and developer costs. Here is the overview of SDKs provided by these five products.

While it may appear that SDKs only support a few languages, it’s crucial to remember that all products implement the aforementioned SSO protocols, and there are a ton of universal libraries for OAuth2.0/OIDC and SAML available for every language.

While this comparison overview is to know the key difference in the features provided by the top 5 SSO products in the market, DMG recommends businesses to take support from an SSO expert in choosing the right SSO product according to their business needs.