Are you or your employees suffering from password and username fatigue? The burden is real.
Do not let the required higher level of security fatigue your staff
Usernames and passwords are the primary target for cybercriminals. Every login point or instance can become an opportunity for hackers.
Do computer users at your small or medium-sized business use the same email address and the same set of passwords to login into all their online accounts?
Well, we hope not, but the reality is that password reuse is common and is a major security risk. For this reason, we recommend Single Sign On (SSO).
Start using Single Sign On
SSO is an authentication process that allows a user to access multiple applications with one set of login credentials — which is a wonderful solution for those who prefer to limit the variety of passwords that they use. This may reduce the self-explanatory multiple password fatigue syndrome that computers users can run into.
This authentication process has been around for a while, but it is still not the norm in small and medium-sized businesses. We feel it should be.
Here are the top two reasons why your business should be using SSO:
- SSO improves the user experience because the person using it is less likely to lose, forget or use weak or repeat passwords. This allows computer users to be more productive because they will spend less time resetting passwords.
- SSO strengthens your security. The logic behind SSO is that because users only have to remember one password, they will feel encouraged to use a strong one that is complex. And users are more likely to keep it private. Some of the SSO solutions even offer enhanced security like biometric authentication, voice detection and fingerprint identification.
Thirty-three per cent of companies are using more SaaS applications than they did in 2016 with the average being 16 apps per company.
—BetterCloud
Moving to the cloud
With the mass migration to the cloud, employees today are using more applications than ever before. In fairness to the user, having a separate set of credentials for every application and online service is a massive burden.
SSO saves time. To borrow from the overused aphorism: time is money. And more time may be spent using the Forgot Password feature in addition to the act of signing in.
You can further improve security by having multi-factor authentication (MFA) enabled on your SSO account and thereby enjoy the benefits of MFA across many of the applications that may connected to your SSO.
Moving to Work from Home (WFH) or Work from Anywhere (WFA)
Before the global coronavirus pandemic was declared in March of 2020, the migration to working from home or anywhere for that matter was happening. Slowly, but surely small to medium-sized businesses were beginning to embrace the migration. The pandemic forced many businesses to go to the cloud and have employees working from home.
WFH and WFA causes a greater security risk for companies and for users that are not properly prepared for the change that was thrust upon them. Certainly, logging into public WI-FI offers greater risk than private. The safety of a business’s security is mostly determined by the weakest user’s technical aptitude and willingness to embrace safe browsing and logging in. Making sure that all users are embracing better security across the entire staff is vital. To share yet another aphorism, your chain is only strong as your weakest link.
SSO lowers IT costs
SSO lowers IT costs by saving time on the process of having to reset passwords. When each app requires a different username and password for every employee, chances are high that employees will forget passwords. How to reduce tickets: reduce password and username fatigue.
Many SSO solutions allow users to reset their passwords themselves, eliminating the need for help desk involvement.
SSO may take advantage of a central directory to provision and deprovision users, making the process faster and cheaper. Policies can be defined based on user role, their location, and user habits. Employees, partners, and customers can be quickly provisioned across multiple applications in one action, rather than having to separately provision each application.
IT saves time on deprovisioning, which can be completed in minutes instead of hours.
When enterprises implement a quality SSO solution, it adds security, improves usability, and saves time and money for the IT department.
Key points
For employers, having staff work from home may boost productivity, reduce turnover, and lower organizational costs. At the same time, employees enjoy benefits like flexibility and the lack of a commute.
To work effectively from home, the technology you require needs to be in place. A workspace, internet service that meets your IT needs, a schedule that works with the new autonomy, and the technology to connect to the office and with others in the safest possible manner.