As organizations rapidly adopt new cloud apps and web services, they face a critical challenge: making sure employee access is as seamless as it is secure. Now that our digital lives have expanded in the past few years, so too have the access points through which cyber attackers can wreak havoc or compromise sensitive business data.
Businesses are using single sign-on (SSO) solutions to counter this threat. SSO tools help organizations centrally manage employee accounts, and they also give employees convenient and secure access to many enterprise-ready cloud apps. They leave a gap, however — not all apps are compatible with SSO. Password management can fill this gap, enabling organizations to ensure a more comprehensive and secure approach to employee identity access management.
Here's a look at the benefits of password management and single sign-on (SSO) for your business, and how these two tools can deliver the best benefits of all when paired together.
How password management and SSO tools work
To do their jobs, employees typically have to keep track of a large number of usernames and passwords. These days, they have to juggle more credentials than ever. According to the
Psychology of Passwords 2021 Report, 90% of respondents have up to 50 accounts to manage. Remembering which password goes with which account can be a chore, leading to
password anxiety and fatigue. Before long, employees may end up throwing in the towel and reusing the same password for multiple accounts (65% of respondents said that they did this). Risky password practices like these put the company at risk.
SSO solves this problem by giving employees a portal where they can log in just once and gain one-click access to all of their essential business applications. This way, they can get up and running in no time from anywhere.
Password management takes a slightly different approach. Employees can use a business password manager to securely store all of their passwords in an encrypted vault, accessing it from the device of their choice and even having the password manager automatically fill in their passwords for them. A smart password management solution can also introduce employees to good password hygiene practices, for example by alerting them when one of their passwords is being re-used elsewhere and automatically generating a secure, complex password to take its place.
How password management fills the gaps of SSO
Although organizations find SSO valuable for security and streamlining the login experience for employees, there's a catch: not all apps and web services are compatible with the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) or Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) technologies that SSO uses. This means that if your organization uses a specialized application or some unusual software, it might not work with SSO out of the box (so to speak). Your employees may be stuck having to keep mental track of those usernames and passwords, just like before, making it hard to maximize
the benefits of SSO.
Fortunately, password management can fill these gaps. If an application or website is not compatible with SAML or LDAP, a password manager provides a method to securely store and share that credential. It also helps IT enforce security controls for employee-introduced apps and web services, ensuring protection at every access point.
How password management and SSO can improve security
Although employees appreciate how password management and SSO make it easier to for them to be productive from anywhere, these tools offer additional security benefits that many organizations will find attractive. For example, when used together, these tools can reduce the total number of credentials used. This, in turn, limits the total number of passwords that can be compromised. With fewer access points to target, attackers will find it a little harder to gain unauthorized access to sensitive systems or data.
Password management and SSO also reduce the number of employee login attempts and resets that are typically required when an organization doesn't have SSO or password management in place. Employees can also use a password manager to securely share credentials to an account that is shared by multiple team members. All of these security enhancements help IT and security pros get a better night's sleep.
Password management and SSO also give admins greater insight into how employee accounts are being accessed via both high-level and granular dashboard reports. This way, they can more easily stay on top of any security concerns affecting the business without having to juggle between multiple monitoring tools. It's also easier to onboard new employee accounts using these tools, which frees up precious time that IT can use to keep the business running smoothly and securely.
Streamline and secure employee logins with password management and SSO
More people are working from home than ever before, and they're juggling more accounts, too. SSO makes their lives easier by giving them access to many of the apps they need using just one username and password. However, not all apps and services are compatible with SSO, which can lead to worrisome security gaps. Password management tools can fill these gaps by giving employees convenient access to the rest of the apps they need - all without having to keep track of yet another username and password. With both of these complementary solutions in place, employees can work more smoothly from anywhere — and business leaders can breathe a sigh of relief knowing their employee accounts and data are more secure.
Learn more about how a password manager and SSO work together
here.
