What is single sign-on and who is it for?

An average business uses over a thousand cloud services. Even if small businesses use just a few dozen apps, securely managing account logins is still a huge hurdle for both users and administrators. Single sign-on (SSO) is an excellent solution to this issue, so let’s dive into how it works.

What is SSO?

Single sign-on allows you to create one username and one password that thousands of websites will recognize. If you’ve ever clicked “Continue with Google” on a non-Google website, you’ve already enjoyed the benefits of SSO. It’s faster, simpler, and more secure. Now, small businesses can accomplish the same level of efficiency between their employees and cloud platforms.

Instead of requiring everyone in the office to track separate accounts for Office 365, Slack, Trello, and other cloud apps your company uses, you can give them a single set of credentials and manage what they have access to remotely. Employees come to work, enter their designated username and password, and they’re all set for the day.

Why is SSO more secure?

There are a number of ways to set up a small business SSO solution, but most of them focus on removing login information from your servers. Usually, you’ll provide your employees’ logins to an SSO provider (sometimes referred to as an Identity-as-a-Service provider) and each employee will receive a single login paired with a secondary authentication — like a fingerprint or an SMS code to a personal device.

Every time one of your employees visits a cloud platform, such as Office 365 or Google Apps, the SSO provider will verify the user’s identity and the connection’s security. If anything goes wrong, your IT provider will be notified.

Should your network or any of its devices be compromised, hackers would find nothing but logins to your SSO accounts, which are meaningless without fingerprints or mobile devices.

How to get started with SSO

The first step is making sure you have a healthy and responsive IT support system. You need a team that’s constantly available to review suspicious alerts and troubleshoot employee issues. If you don’t currently have that capacity, contact us today and we’ll help you out!