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.
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