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As the number of business applications grow, so do the number of passwords. As a result, passwords have become extremely difficult to control; users are leaving them open to the public and help desk costs are rising in response to users forgetting passwords.
As found in a recent study conducted by Gartner, enterprises are still struggling to come to terms with the issues involved with identity and access management. Security concerns continue to increase for the average organization and as threats become more sophisticated and damaging, many companies are looking for stronger solutions to increase overall security.
Password Proliferation
Passwords have become a nightmare for many organizations. Once a reasonably simple, effective and affordable way to grant authorized users access to important business applications, passwords have become a source of frustration, friction and increasing cost for many enterprises.
In recent years, corporate computing environments became more complex. The number of business applications in those environments has multiplied, leading to a corresponding increase in the number and type of passwords required to access them. As a result, the average user now has to remember several passwords – often forced to change them every few months for safety. To make matters worse, the user must often recall several different types of passwords, each with its own syntax of alphanumeric characters and symbols.
As passwords have proliferated, it has become increasingly difficult for users to remember them. Often, when users forget passwords, they get locked out of the applications they need to perform their work – and must call the IT help desk for assistance. According to Forrester Research, more than 30% of all help desk costs are password-related. With the cost of a single help desk call, the cost of password problems can quickly add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for even mid-sized companies - and that’s not even factoring in the cost of lost productivity when users are locked out of needed applications due to forgotten passwords.
The negative impact of password proliferation extends to the very area that passwords are supposed to help: security. Faced with a growing number of passwords to remember, users often resort to writing them down and leaving them in plain view where an outsider can find them to gain unauthorized access. Another growing problem is users sending emails or documents titled “passwords.” Now, every desktop in the organization is another point of vulnerability in the corporate security armor.
In an effort to strengthen desktop security, many organizations have instituted strong password policies. In the interest of preventing password theft, these policies mandate the use—and frequent changing—of passwords that are intentionally complex and difficult to remember. This also exacerbates the problem of password sharing, resulting in password policy non-compliance, increased security risk and spiraling help desk costs.
More recently, another factor has increased the urgency among enterprises to solve the password proliferation problem: the law. The US federal government has enacted several laws, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, that require organizations to have processes in place to safeguard the privacy of client, patient and employee information.
With problems such as unauthorized entry, password-related help desk costs and the mandates of government regulations, many organizations are finding themselves in vulnerable positions – forced to implement a stronger security posture.
Single Sign-On
Over the past few years, single sign-on (SSO) has emerged as an easy, smart and affordable way for enterprises of all types and sizes to strengthen IT security while improving user productivity. SSO addresses one of the fastest-growing security issues facing corporations today—password proliferation and control.
SSO solutions deliver an immediate, significant ROI while strengthening security and improving user convenience—and its benefits span areas such as user productivity, access control, help desk costs and regulatory compliance.
SSO requires a user to remember and provide just one set of credentials – user name and password – to access the full portfolio of applications, data and services for which that user is authorized. This means that each user’s network identity will have all the relevant application credentials linked to it and authentication will be managed in the background. While employees can spend less time logging in and out of network applications and more time concentrating on important work tasks.
With an SSO solution, enterprises can meet government mandates and security requirements in two major ways: strengthen application password security and establish user application access data. Additionally, SSO solutions assist the management of password policies via implementation of strong passwords, or strong authentication methods, at one central point. This results in better authentication management and greater security. SSO also enforces network-level authentication, enabling single point of control for access, authorization, authentication and tracking access to information/data.
SSO solutions do not just solve password management issues, they tighten an organization’s entire security posture. Additionally, SSO easily integrates with strong authentication to make sure that every enterprise is as secure as possible. Today’s SSO solutions solve the problems associated with password proliferation in a variety of ways including:
1. Enabling the use of a single strong password or authentication for all applications;
2. Reducing the number of password-related help desk calls;
3. Relieving users from shouldering the burden of password policy implementation; and
4. Supporting compliance with federal and industry regulations.
The Right Fit
When examining SSO technology options, look for an affordable, easy-to-implement solution that enables SSO without modifying the applications that personnel use everyday. All organizations will benefit from quicker implementation of a security solution, lower help-desk costs, increased productivity and compliance – without modification of existing applications or interruption of business activities. In addition, to maximize the enterprise-wide benefit, an SSO solution should fully-support multiple strong authentication methods and centralized password policies to allow companies to implement levels of security that are appropriate for their environments.
Passwords are intended to secure data, applications and other IT resources. Although password proliferation has resulted in several problems that include increased security risks, implementing the proper SSO solution can significantly reduce those risks.
About the Author:
David Ting is Founder and CTO of Imprivata, Inc. (www.imprivata.com).
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