Today’s business applications and network-based resources are an essential element of the modern enterprise. In order to precisely deliver proper access to the right users, enterprises rely on a system of accounts and passwords for security. From the end user’s perspective, it means considerable amounts of time and effort just to establish their identity, a process repeated over and over again for each resource. Remembering the correct password for a particular application can be particularly demanding, and getting the answer wrong means downtime and calls to the help desk.

ActivIdentity Single Sign-On is an enterprise solution designed to handle credentials and password management on the user’s behalf. By leveraging a user’s identity and credentials once during login, it establishes the security context for seamless access to applications and resources.

For the end user, ActivIdentity Single Sign-On eliminates the burden of remembering multitudes of passwords and the maddening experience of resolving forgotten ones. Enterprises achieve stronger levels security, lower help desk costs, and the user frustration that leads to lost productivity.

ActivIdentity Single Sign-On reuses existing deployments of LDAP directory services for identity, and supporting a broad range of strong and easy-to-use security mechanisms for credentials. Start your identity management strategy with enterprise single sign-on and deliver on the promise of making strong security easy-to-use.

Single Sign-On Business Challenges
Throughout the business day, users endure a continuous cycle of logging in and out of applications, each with different account names, passwords, and security policies. As the number of applications increase, security and usability requirements clash with one another. Users must remember a number of secret passwords, changing them according the policy set forth by the application owners, and wait for assistance from the help desk should they forget a password.

Unfortunately, users can reach a point where they perceive passwords as an impediment to their work, and may attempt circumvent policy or demand changes to IT in order to make the system easier to use, even though such practices places the enterprise at risk.

Password challenges affect the enterprise with:

• High Help Desk Costs – Password issues place a tremendous burden on the help desk staffing requirements. Gartner Group estimates that 30-40% of all help desk calls are password related, and cost the company between $17-$20 per incident.
  
  
• User Frustration – Users quickly become frustrated from lost passwords, inconsistencies policies, and password management events that prevent them from getting work done.
  
  
• Lost Productivity – Logging into applications multiple times per day results in lost productivity. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates each person spends 15+ minutes per day just logging in to various applications. According to Gartner Group, it takes approximately 8 minutes per incident to resolve password lock-outs.
  
  
• Security Risks – Users try to get around security policies with low grade, easily guessed passwords, or by writing down their passwords on pieces of paper. These practices increase the risk for unauthorised access to enterprise systems.

Single Sign-On Key Features

Single Sign-On
Leverage a single authentication to access multiple enterprise resources, including client/server enterprise applications, mainframe hosted applications, and web-based applications. Authenticate once, and ActivIdentity Single Sign-On manages accounts and password information to target platforms and applications as they are accessed. Passwords can be stored encrypted in an LDAP-based directory service, on the local PC, or on a smart card.

Password Management
Automate password management to target platforms and applications. Creates random, automatically changing passwords, for application security. Password policies (such as password length, rules, and change rules) are automatically honored behind-the-scenes without disrupting the user. Automatically updates password change events without disrupting the user.

Flexible Authentication
Supports a variety of authentication mechanisms. Use standard passwords, or take advantage of higher strength security with USB keys, tokens, biometrics or smart cards.

Integrates with Applications and Enterprise Systems
ActivIdentity Single Sign-On works with a variety of enterprise and network operating system directory servers, identity management software, and Windows security features for easy deployment and a seamless user experience.

Open and Customisable
ActivIdentity Single Sign-On has wizard-driven configuration tools to simplify configuration and supports Microsoft VBScript for easy customisation.

Single Sign-On Benefits

The solution to password frustration is enterprise single sign-on (SSO). Enterprise SSO provides users with the ability to leverage a single authentication to client/server, mainframe, and web-based applications.

ActivIdentity Single Sign-On combines both strong password security and ease of use together into solution designed for the enterprise user. Upon establishing a user’s credentials, ActivIdentity Single Sign-On delivers the user’s security context to the desktop, enabling seamless access to entitled applications and resources.

Benefits

• Relieves password frustration – Users authenticate once to gain access to protected resources, without being asked to remember passwords for each application used.
  
  
• Lowers help desk costs - ActivIdentity Single Sign-On lowers help desk costs by reducing the number of passwords users need to conduct their work. Meta Group estimates 33% reduction in help desk volume when using an enterprise Single Sign-On solution.
  
  
• Increases productivity – Users spend less time fighting with the application’s security, and experience less downtime from forgotten passwords.
  
  
• Increases security and reduces risk – ActivIdentity Single Sign-On provides automated password management to handle password policy events and increase the strength and quality of passwords. Supports a range of authentication methods to meet specific business requirements, ranging from standard passwords to device-based authentication.