Single Sign On How Secure Is It?

Single sign on is one of the latest innovations for accessing accounts with Microsoft.

What is single sign on?

Accessing all accounts through one sign in is the fundamental design of this system. Allowing you to have a very strong entry point which gives access to multiple accounts. This means all the user has to do is apply high level secure that they manage at the entry point.

Security similarities

Single sign on at a base level can be compared to a password vault. Password vaults hold account details and allow the transference of the password copied into the account or used in an extension this enables long hard to break passwords are able to be used effectively.

How secure does it make you?

Single sign on allows the user to removed the risk of inputting account information into the wrong places and allows hardening reducing the size and vulnerabilities. With the implementation of this and MFA security for accounts does increase substantially.

Single sign on flaw

Users poor management, having one unsecure entry point enables a person access to multiple software accounts. Poor management of a system like this would be more dangerous than have 8 different accounts with passwords. Understand how you work or the culture of the workplace when something like this is being considered.

Comparisons and alternatives

Password managers are the easiest comparison to make and both forms are very effective. Having MFA available to both it is really down to where it is stored and the user running these systems. If a password manager is compromised the result compares to single sign on is quite similar. Single sign on can be restricted to certain software’s whereas a password manager is generally used for everything. It is quite hard to compare anything else however if you dont have MFA currently this is a key security layer that is becoming more common place and key to security.

A previous week’s cyber news article is available here.

For more information around SSO a link to Microsoft is available here.