Why Passwords Are Losing Battle And Single Sign-On is Gaining Popularity?

The increase in data breaches and rise in hacking attacks on sensitive data and other information raised the need of improving security. Businesses are investing a huge amount of money on keeping sensitive documents safe and secure. Hacking secret data is very common nowadays. Hackers are aware of many passwords cracking techniques. So, security professionals are working hard to provide the best solutions that keep hackers away.  Passwords are one such way that helps in avoiding hackers.

Each and every day, millions of users are using passwords to get secure access to their confidential information. They have become an integral part of our daily life and why not, they allow only authenticated persons to access the service.

But the other part of the story is that although they keep private resources secure but their popularity is decreasing constantly. One of the reason is, they can be stolen, shared or guessed easily. The other reason is, they are very hard to remember. Honestly speaking, I am very bad at remembering them. The combination of numbers, letters, and special characters or symbols make them very complex.

Some of the reasons why passwords are losing their popularity:

They can be guessed

Well, “password”, “123456789”, “mypass”, etc. are some of the most used passwords. These are some easy to remember passwords but from a security point of view, they are not good.

They can be lost or forgotten

As I stated earlier, passwords are very complex. Complexity is the main reason why we forget passwords. In order to remember passwords, commonly we wrote them somewhere. A very bad approach again. It opens the door for hackers to steal credentials.

Additionally, we have dozens of online resources to access. That adds up the number of passwords. More the passwords more will be the complexity. To reduce the password count, IT professional came up with a great solution called web single sign-on.

The technology helps users to get access to all web resources that falls under the roof of the same domain. Once users get logged into any of the websites of a business, they don’t need to provide credentials again to authenticate. They will be logged in automatically to any of the websites. With only one set of username and password, users can access multiple resources.

Benefits of a Single sign-on solution:

It provides secure authentication

Web authentication is the weakest area from where hackers get inside to the systems. So, it must be highly secure and protected. SSO solution is based on SAML (security assertion and markup language) technology, one of the most secure authentication protocol. The systems that are protected with SSO solution are like hard nuts for hackers to crack. Also if users have only one password to remember, they can make it strong and unbreakable.

No more password pain

With single sign-on, users can enjoy access to resources using only one password. They don’t need to create dozens of passwords and memorized them. One password, that’s it.

It doubles user experience

By minimizing passwords and improving security, the solution improves users experience. Now, without wasting time on entering credentials, users can enjoy content on the website.

Is it beneficial for businesses?

Yes, it is. The solution is equally profitable for businesses as for users. Let’s see how.

Reduces support help desk cost

People usually forget their passwords. They call IT team to regain their passwords by submitting a password forget request. Businesses have to invest lots of money on the support team. SSO reduces the problem and minimizes the calls related to forgotten password. This saves businesses money and maximizes profits.

Helps in creating unified customer view

By gathering customers data from different channels and sources, SSO presents a unified view of a customer. This unified persona helps businesses to build more leads and sales.