There is no doubt that passwords are a hazard to your business. Employees tend to reuse the same weak passwords across accounts. Employees write passwords down, share them insecurely with others, and, unless they’re forced to, they forget to change them periodically, even when there’s been a security incident. And once stolen, passwords offer little defense against an attack. It’s no wonder 80% of breaches are due to poor password practices, according to the 2019 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report.
For any organization that’s serious about following cybersecurity best practices and preventing a breach, it’s critical to eliminate passwords where possible and strengthen those still in use.
With Single Sign-On (SSO), an organization can significantly reduce the number of passwords employees need to create, remember, and use. SSO securely connects an employee to the work applications in which they are assigned, without the need to type a password. When SSO is paired with an Enterprise Password Manager (EPM), an organization can achieve complete control over not only passwords, but of user access in general.
How? With a solution like LastPass that combines SSO and EPM into one solution, employees have one portal that connects them to all the apps, websites, and resources they need to use to do their jobs. An admin can assign an SSO app to one or more employees, and access will be granted. The employees only need to know one password to unlock the portal, while the SSO service does the work of connecting the employee to other sites and services, without the need to enter a password at each one.
Of course, not all websites support SSO, and traditional usernames and passwords will likely still need to be used. That’s why pairing SSO with EPM is so important. The EPM functionality ensures all credentials are captured and stored in the same portal, so employees can organize and manage everything from one safe place. It also fills the passwords for employees whenever they need to log in, eliminating the hassle of recalling and typing dozens, if not hundreds, of complex passwords.
And it’s not just employees that benefit from this simplified, frictionless user experience. With a combined solution, IT admins gain complete control over user access. They can assign the right apps to the right employees, and have insight into the other websites and services employees are saving to their portal; what would normally be hidden from view as Shadow IT. Admins gain insight into password hygiene and user access behaviors across the organization, allowing them to spot issues before it becomes a bigger problem.
Watch the video below to learn more about the benefits of Single Sign-On offered by LastPass, and the simple steps you can take to configure SSO apps for employees across your organization.
