Week 9 Blog: Single-Sign-on Authentications

 

I have the opportunity of learning about a new authentication method for the very first time, so, I have decided to use this blog post to discuss as much as possible to explain some details about the authentication method. The authentication method in which I am speaking of is none other than Single Sign-On authentication. First, before going any further, “authentication is a process usually managed by a server that proves the identity of a client (which could be a user, service, or application) and determines whether that client is allowed to access a secured system.” To validate the very identity of any client, there must be some kind of “directory service” implemented in place to manage all the database account information associated with the client “usernames, passwords, and other authentication credentials.”

Authentication

In addition to speaking about authentication, there must be an effective password policy implemented to prevent users from compromising their credentials due to inefficient use of passwords. The one way in which password policies can become effective in preventing and increasing “security of user authentication is through a well-designed” and establish “password policy.”

Password Policies

The purpose for passwords policies is to require a password to meet certain requirements like the following:

1.      Complexity – the complexity of password is to require users to utilize combination of different type of characters like upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and non-alphanumeric characters.  

2.      Length – any cybersecurity experts will validate the importance of implementing password policy to meet certain requirements.

3.      Expiration – part of implementing password requirement is to have user change their password after certain period. This requirement increases password resistance against hacking. Implementing a policy that prevents users from reusing pervious passwords is imperative because users have the habit of reusing their pervious password.

4.      Lockout – the purpose for this requirement, configuring this into password policies is to have the system automatically lockdown a user account after the require sign-in attempt as reach. Multiple attempts made of entering password is one of various ways cybercriminals can break-into accounts.

Single Sign-On

That said, security is always a huge aspect to fully accomplish especially when it comes to “convenience and safety.” Increasing security operation for the purpose of locking “down a resource,” the likely hood of decreasing conveniences rise. If you implement security measures that are just way too inconvenient for users, it may not become too welcome to the average users, and they will attempt to find an avenue around the security protocol. On the other hand, resources become unsecure if you decide to make security convenient for users. The answer to implementing good security will be to find and effectively utilize “tools that increase both convenience (so people will use them correctly) and safety (so they keep your resources secure) and avoid sacrificing safety to increase convenience.” Single Sign-On is security method to this solution, however, single sign-on does not completely solve the problem to this “conundrum,” Single Sign-On technology prevents the user from having to create more than one account. Google used single sign-on technology to reduce the burden of having to memorize too many passwords for many different accounts. When a user is in the process of creating an account for Facebook, LinkedIn, and many other platforms, the user will be provided with an option to sign-in with Google, that is if the user already have a Google account, for example.

 

 

 

Reference:

West, Jill. (2023). CompTIA Cloud+ Guide to Cloud Computing (p. 267 - 270). Kindle Edition. Retrieved: November 6, 2023.