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IAM Using SSO and Federated Identity Management

Have you ever wondered how large organizations let employees access multiple applications securely without juggling dozens of passwords? The answer lies in Identity and Access Management (IAM), a critical framework that ensures the right people have the right access at the right time. Two of the most common solutions in IAM are Single Sign-On (SSO) and Federated Identity Management. While both aim to simplify access and strengthen security, they serve different purposes and operate in distinct ways.

In this article, we’ll explore the roles of SSO and federated identity in modern enterprises, highlight their benefits, and explain why SSO is often the go-to choice for organizations looking to improve security and user experience.

Role of Single Sign-On (SSO) in Identity and Access Management

Single Sign-On (SSO) is a solution that allows users to authenticate once and gain access to multiple applications within a single organization. In today’s enterprise environments, employees often need access to dozens of apps, both cloud-based and on-premise. Without SSO, they must remember multiple credentials, which increases the risk of weak passwords, forgotten credentials, and security breaches.

In IAM, SSO plays a critical role in both security and productivity:

Centralized Authentication

SSO consolidates all authentication points into a single identity provider (IdP). IT teams can enforce consistent security policies across every application in the organization, including password rules, multi-factor authentication, and access levels.
Improved User Experience

Users log in once and gain access to all authorized applications. This eliminates the frustration of multiple logins, improves productivity, and reduces IT helpdesk requests related to password resets.
Real-Time Monitoring and Audit

IT teams can track user activity across all applications, detect anomalies, and respond to potential threats quickly, strengthening overall security.
Support for Hybrid Environments

Whether employees are using cloud apps, on-premise applications, or a mix of both, SSO ensures seamless access without compromising security.

A practical example of SSO in action is Google Workspace. With one Gmail login, employees can access Drive, Calendar, Sites, and other applications without logging in again. By centralizing authentication, SSO reduces password fatigue, improves security, and streamlines identity and access management.

What is Federated Identity Management?

Federated Identity Management, also known as Federated SSO, extends the concept of SSO across organizational boundaries. Essentially, it allows users from one organization to securely access applications in another organization without creating separate credentials.

To understand federated identity, think of it as a trust framework between multiple identity providers. Each organization agrees to certain standards and protocols to share authentication and authorization information securely.

Key points about federated identity include:

Cross-Organization Access

Federated identity allows employees or partners from one organization to access resources in another organization without separate login credentials.
Standardized Protocols

Trust relationships between identity providers are built using protocols such as SAML, OAuth 2, OpenID, and WS-Federation.
Multiple Federation Models

Federation can involve multiple applications within a single organization, applications across multiple organizations, or multiple IdPs trusting a central IdP.
Security Through Trust

Digital signatures, encryption, and PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) ensure that authentication data is secure and verifiable.

If you’re asking what is the function of a federated identity, it is to securely share user authentication and authorization across networks while giving users seamless access to multiple services. This is especially valuable for enterprises collaborating with partners, suppliers, or other organizations.

Key Benefits of SSO and Why It’s Better Than Federated Identity Management

Both Single Sign-On (SSO) and Federated Identity Management are important tools within identity and access management (IAM), but SSO often provides more practical and immediate benefits for most enterprises. Here’s a closer look at why SSO stands out:

1. Simplified Deployment and Management

Implementing SSO within a single organization is much simpler than setting up federated identity systems, which require cross-organization agreements and trust frameworks. With SSO, IT teams can deploy authentication controls quickly across all applications used within the enterprise, without worrying about external dependencies. This makes onboarding new employees and applications faster and more efficient.

2. Enhanced Security

Centralized authentication is one of the biggest advantages of SSO. By consolidating login processes through a single identity provider (IdP), organizations can enforce consistent security policies such as strong password requirements, multi-factor authentication, and device compliance checks. This reduces the likelihood of weak passwords, password reuse, and other vulnerabilities. Federated identity, while secure across organizations, introduces more complexity, which can create potential gaps if not managed carefully.

3. Improved User Experience

Employees no longer need to remember dozens of credentials for different applications. With SSO, logging in once grants access to all authorized applications, improving workflow efficiency and reducing frustration. A smooth and intuitive login experience also encourages better adherence to security practices, as users are less likely to circumvent security measures to save time.

4. Reduced IT Overhead

SSO significantly decreases helpdesk tickets related to password resets or account lockouts, saving IT teams both time and resources. With federated identity, IT teams must also manage trust relationships, agreements, and integrations across multiple organizations, which adds complexity and administrative effort.

5. Scalability for Enterprise Growth

As organizations expand and adopt new applications, SSO makes it easy to scale authentication without compromising security or user convenience. Adding a new application typically involves connecting it to the existing IdP, rather than creating new accounts for every employee. Federated identity, in contrast, requires additional setup for every external organization involved.

6. Centralized Monitoring and Compliance

SSO allows IT teams to monitor user activity in real time across all connected applications. Audit trails, login histories, and access reports are all consolidated, making it easier to demonstrate compliance with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, or ISO 27001. Federated identity can also provide monitoring, but tracking cross-organizational access often requires more complex reporting and coordination.

7. Faster Incident Response

In the event of a security incident, SSO enables IT administrators to quickly revoke access to all connected applications from a single dashboard. This centralized control is crucial for limiting damage and maintaining security. Federated identity systems require coordination between multiple organizations, which can slow down response times.

In short, while federated identity management is essential for inter-organizational collaboration, SSO offers enterprises a more streamlined, secure, and user-friendly approach to identity and access management. It simplifies operations, enhances security, and improves the overall employee experience, making it the preferred solution for internal enterprise environments.

Conclusion: The Future of IAM with SSO

With cloud applications, hybrid work, and remote teams becoming the norm, managing who can access what has never been more important. Identity and Access Management (IAM) is at the heart of keeping enterprise systems secure, and Single Sign-On (SSO) has proven to be one of the most effective ways to simplify access while maintaining strong security. By letting users log in once to access all their authorized applications, SSO reduces password fatigue, limits security risks, and saves time for both employees and IT teams.

Federated Identity Management still plays a key role when organizations need to collaborate across networks, but it comes with added complexity. For most enterprises looking to streamline operations and maintain control, SSO offers a more practical, reliable, and secure solution. Centralized authentication allows IT teams to enforce policies consistently, monitor access in real time, and respond quickly if something goes wrong.

Investing in a strong SSO solution today means preparing your organization for the future. It makes scaling easier, supports compliance with regulations like GDPR and HIPAA, and ensures employees can access the tools they need without friction.

Ultimately, organizations that implement SSO can focus on growth, innovation, and productivity, knowing their systems are secure and their teams have seamless access to the applications they rely on every day.

Ready to Simplify Access and Strengthen Security? Talk to us now!

A malicious user gaining access to your apps can be catastrophic. Here’s how a secure SSO could help.

In any enterprise, it is a given that employees will come and go, and many will switch roles within the organization as well. At the same time, the same is true for the applications that the company uses – new apps will be deployed, old ones will be retired, and changes are constant.

What this means is a continuous churn – in identity management for users, and service providers, by means of the SaaS applications in use. Ensuring data and app security across the organization depends heavily on ensuring secure communication between your identity provider and service providers.

Deploying a robust Single Sign-On (SSO) solution represents the best answer to this challenge. An SSO allows an enterprise to manage the identities of employees in one place, and delegate access and privileges from there.

Most SaaS providers support SSO integration as it is the most efficient route to centralized identity and access management. The SSO authentication method also enables users to securely access multiple apps and websites with a single set of credentials, which reduces issues like password fatigue, which boosts security, lowers IT help desk load, and increases organizational efficiency.

How SSO works

To get your SSO in place, you need to find the right identity provider. The identity provider is essentially a service that securely stores and manages digital identities. An SSO works based on a trust relationship between the app and the identity provider.

Organizations establish a trust relationship between an identity provider and their service providers to allow their employees or users to then connect with the resources they need. Such a trust relationship is established by exchanging digital certificates and metadata. The certificate carries secure tokens which contain identity information like email address and password, to authenticate that the request has come from a trusted source and to verify identity.

Although SSO can work with as many apps as the organization wants, each must be configured with a unique trust relationship.

How the Service Provider-Identity Provider relationship works

Once an identity provider is onboarded, every time a user tries to connect to a service provider, the sign-in request is sent to the central server where the identity provider is hosted. The identity provider validates the credentials and sends back a token. If their identity cannot be verified, the user will be prompted to log into the SSO or verify credentials using other methods like a TOTP. Once the identity provider validates the credentials it sends the user a token.

The token confirming the successful authentication is validated by the service provider against the certificate initially configured and shared between service provider and identity provider, after which the user can access the application.

The identity provider verifies the user credentials and sends back an ‘authentication token’ (almost like a temporary ID card) to the service provider. And, of course, all this happens in a fraction of a second.

Advantages of using SSO

Simplifies credentials management for users and admin
Improves speed of app access
Reduces time spent by IT support on recovering passwords
Offers central control of password complexity and MFA
Simplifies provisioning and de-provisioning
Secures the system as information moves encrypted across the network
Completely seamless/transparent to the user
Easy to add on new service providers

Akku is a powerful identity and access management solution that can enhance data security, efficiency, and productivity across your corporate network through its robust SSO feature. If you would like assistance on ensuring secure access for all your users to your organization’s applications, do get in touch with us.

Single Sign-On and why your organization needs it!

Single Sign-On (SSO) is a session and user authentication service where one set of credentials – typically a username and password – can be used by an organization’s users to access multiple apps.

SSO delivers tighter control for admins, helping to keep an organization’s data more secure by providing access only to users who really need it. At the same time, it makes operations more secure at the user level too – when users don’t need to remember a large number of credentials, they would be more willing to use stronger passwords.

Besides its inherent security, SSO also simplifies provisioning and de-provisioning, which in effect also increases security by preventing unauthorized access to apps and data.

How secure is your SSO?

Some misconceptions also exist regarding SSO – key among them is that SSO leads to an increased security risk, almost like putting all your eggs in one basket. After all, with one system controlling access across all of an organization’s applications, what if that single system is compromised?

It is therefore important to understand that SSO functions through a system of secure tokens which do not carry any sensitive data, making it a very safe proposition. We’ll explore exactly how this works, and how these tokens ensure security, later in this article.

What are SSO tokens and how do they work?

SSO tokens are tiny sets of digitally signed structured information to ensure mutual trust between parties.

It’s like an exclusive club with select invitees, where guards at the entrance check, approve, and stamp each guest’s hand. Event staff will know the exact shape and color of the stamp used and therefore authenticate the entry. Similarly, in the digital world, the service and identity providers communicate via tokens.

Tokens don’t include sensitive data like user’s password or biometric information, ensuring that any interception or attack on the tokens does not reveal the information. The same token can be used to add on new services to the same SSO platform as well. It facilitates identity verification separately from other cloud services, making SSO possible.

Data Security through SSO

SSO improves enterprise security as it reduces the number of attack surfaces because users only log in once each day and only use one set of credentials.

It also significantly reduces the possibilities of password-related hacks. With SSO, users only need to remember one password for all their applications. So, they are more likely to create complex and hard-to-guess passwords. They are also less likely to reuse passwords or write them down.

Another reason SSO is popular among enterprises is that it allows scaling up. Both access to new apps and addition of new people can be managed without sacrificing security, because identity and access management are already addressed. And rapid provisioning and deprovisioning without needing to worry about human error means more reliable and secure access management.

For added security, SSO can also be paired with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), where additional factors of authentication are required beyond just the user’s password, to reconfirm the identity of the user.

Akku incorporates robust and secure token-based SSO functionality, helping to deliver greater security and efficiency. Contact us today for more information.

Exploring the Difference Between Identity Management and Access Management

Only a small percentage of people across industries understand the difference between Identity Management and Access Management. The two concepts are certainly related and intricately interwoven, but they are still distinct in meaning and function.
Continue reading Exploring the Difference Between Identity Management and Access Management

What is ADFS and why do you need it?

ADFS (Active Directory Federation Services) is an SSO solution created by Microsoft to authenticate users logging into applications which are incompatible with Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA) and Active Directory (AD).

ADFS provides organizations with the flexibility needed to simplify the user experience while improving the control that admins have over user accounts across owned as well as third-party applications. Since ADFS implements SSO, your employees are required to remember only one set of credentials for all the applications. Continue reading What is ADFS and why do you need it?

Is Social Login a Secure Login?

Social login is a form of single sign-on, where users are allowed to log into an application or website using one of their existing social media account credentials. A social login, therefore, eliminates the need for users to register on yet another online platform – saving them the need to remember yet another set of credentials.

If you are a business, you may have noticed that a social login option on your online platform has had a positive effect on the number of registrations you receive. If you are an individual user, you may have found the option to either “Sign up” or “Login with Facebook/Google” and felt relieved that you were able to access the platform in just a few seconds by choosing the latter. But have you ever thought of how secure this method of login really is?

Let us look at the various aspects that affect the security of social login.

Social networks invest more on security

Social login is, by and large, considered to be a secure login method. This is because social media platforms including Google and Facebook are huge, powerful corporations in the online world with more potential than the original business (to whose website/application you are logging into) to set up strong security measures.

One compromised credential = multiple compromised accounts

On the other hand, if a hacker does manage to crack the social account – either due to a weak password or through a brute-force attack, this puts not only a user’s social media profile under threat but all of the applications and websites in which the user has used a social login option. The problem is only made worse with advanced threats like credential stuffing.

Similarly, if an individual’s phone is stolen and unlocked, with a Facebook or Google account that is still logged in, more than just one account is again compromised.

Third-party tracking scripts continue to threaten

Research conducted by Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy revealed that, when you log in to a website or application using social login, a third party might be able to place tracking scripts on the website or application. These tracking scripts have the ability to steal information that you have shared with the website or application during the social login – and sometimes even more than just that!

Although Facebook has announced, post publication of this study, that it would address this loophole in their universal login API, experts say that the issue may be deeper and more complicated than that. It is a harsh reality that a number of companies today create software and tracking tools that can be used to scoop, steal and sell information from such platforms.

So, what is the solution?

While the ease and convenience of social login is undeniable, it is also becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the potential threats of using such a feature. The next time you are thinking about a social login, keep these points in mind:

Enable multi-factor authentication and risk-based adaptive authentication features that are provided by your social media network. A number of social network providers have set up these built-in security enhancement features, but they may not be enabled by default. Make sure to check your account/privacy settings and make the appropriate changes. This way, an additional layer of security will back you up even in case that your username/password are compromised.

Check what permissions are being asked of you by the website or application that you are registering to using a social login. There will be a request to access your name, public profile and a few other details sometimes. Provide only information that you think is relevant to the site and deny all others. It might also help if you go back to your social media account and check what all is part of your public profile, and change those settings in order to limit the information you are allowing someone else to access.

Use the social login feature selectively. If you are wary of a website or application, or if you are sure you will not be using it too ofteis n (and hence will not need a quick login method), then avoid logging in to them using your social media credentials. We suggest creating an email ID only for such occasional-use sign ups and using that to register instead.

If you are a business offering social login, you could offer your users with more security by integrating your application or service with an identity and access management solution (IAM) like Akku which comes with advanced features like multi-factor authentication, location-based restrictions, and suspicious login prevention. We also recommend that you speak to a cloud specialist on other cloud security measures that you can implement.

The Importance of Single Sign-on for Educational Institutions

Let’s admit it: schools and universities today are not what they used to be back when we were growing up. Digitization has swept over almost every aspect of educational institutions. Classrooms have become “smart”, with blackboards being replaced or supplemented by LED screens. Students can simply log in to portals from where they can access information about grades, access lessons from learning apps, and more. Teachers don’t use physical attendance registers today; they mark the daily attendance of their students on tablets – data from which triggers automatic, customized messages to the parents of students who are absent from class.

With such revolutionary change taking over educational institutions, they are also under the rising threat of becoming the target of hackers. Therefore, it is important to ensure enhanced security across the network to prevent student and parent information from being exploited. What’s more, there are cases of students themselves becoming hackers these days – attempting to manipulate grades, using their fellow students’ information to bully them online, and engaging in other malicious activities.

Here are some ways in which a single sign-on solution can not only enhance security but also improve the efficiency of administrators in your educational institution.

Easy Provisioning and Deprovisioning

Every year, a set of students graduate and a new set of students are enrolled. This means that creating accounts and providing access to student portals is a never-ending process. More importantly, denying access to a student who no longer studies at the institution must not be overlooked.

With an SSO, administrators can view – in a single dashboard – all of the apps related to a particular user account and take action quickly and effectively without having to provision/deprovision accounts individually across apps or portals.

Instant Access to all Apps

A survey conducted in the USA showed that 25% of class-time is spent in troubleshooting and teachers trying to help students log in to their respective learning applications. In most cases, the use of multiple applications, and therefore multiple credentials, is the main problem here.

A single sign-on solution, as the name suggests, eliminates the need for multiple credentials, and with it, reduces the time taken to remember and correctly enter them. This also reduces the number of stray passwords, prevents users from writing down passwords and using other methods to remember credentials that are prone to compromise, and also reduces the time taken in resetting forgotten passwords.

Secure Password Policy Enforcement

Students of today may be sharp, but technology is sharper and acts as a double-edged sword. This is why, when it comes to protecting your network from brute-force attacks and other modern security threats, a strong password policy is essential. After all, a compromised password of a student could compromise the security of the entire network in more ways than one.

An SSO typically acts as the identity provider (IdP) to all the applications or portals used within the institution and, therefore, can be used to set up and enforce a strong password policy. This will ensure that passwords created by users of the institution’s applications meet a certain set of requirements with regard to length and complexity.

SSO and Beyond – Akku

Akku, by CloudNow, is an identity and access management solution that includes a powerful SSO functionality. But SSO is only one of many in a slew of features packed into this IAM solution.

Akku can also help you ensure safer interactions on the internet with filters, harness the power of YouTube for teaching/learning, use multi-factor authentication to restrict access to confidential data and more.

For more information on what Akku can do for your institution, get in touch today!

Dedicated servers for unmatched transparency in data privacy

Apart from data security, data privacy represents a major area of concern in IT security today. When it comes to data privacy, all organizations are very particular about where and how their company data is being saved, and who has access to it.

This is also related to one of the major reasons why organizations still hesitate to move their data to the cloud – “who else has access to my data if I move to cloud?” Even though almost every IaaS and PaaS provider tries to build confidence in their clients through certifications by authorized agencies, many enterprises are still not convinced. The reason is that there are still areas that lack transparency, where details on their data privacy are not clearly explained and conveyed to them.

To make things more complicated, in many cases, “backdoors” are being legalized by governments!

An effective identity and access management (IAM) solution plays a major role in data privacy and security and could go a long way in addressing the concerns that many businesses have. However, when it comes to IAM, most of the tools do not provide a dedicated server for each of their clients. While it is a fact that a dedicated server tends to cost more when it comes to pricing to the service provider, it is definitely the best way to provide 100% visibility to the client on their company data.

When a dedicated server is assigned to a client, it is possible to share server access between the client and service provider – the service provider cannot login without the client’s knowledge, and the client cannot login without the service provider’s knowledge. This may present some practical difficulties, but it is the only way to give a client 100% confidence that their data is truly under their control.

While it is true that all models have their own advantages and disadvantages, the use of a dedicated server for each client is clearly the best solution in terms of visibility and transparency, with minimal practical difficulty.

Meet GCP IAM: The Identity and Access Management Solution from Google

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) IAM comes as a free service that is available by default to all users of the Google Cloud Platform. GCP IAM is Google’s identity management console, enabling administrators of organizations to manage access and permissions provided to employees across the range of applications and resources that come as part of the Google Cloud Platform. The main function of the IAM is to grant specific users/roles with access to specific GCP resources and prevent unwanted access to other resources.

The fundamental building block of GCP IAM is an IAM Policy which answers the question of who (identity) has what access (role) to which data or applications (resource). This IAM Policy is made up of permissions, bundled into roles and matched by identities.

Let’s take a closer look at the concepts of identity, role, and resource as defined by GCP IAM, which make it a useful IAM solution.

Identity

A user’s identity can be accounted for through their Google account (assigned to an individual), Service account (assigned to a service related to the user’s role), a Google group (which can contain more than one Google/Service account), or a G Suite domain name (consisting of all G Suite accounts under a particular domain) or Cloud Identity domain (consisting of all G suite accounts under a particular organization) name.

Role

A role is a combination of permissions assigned to an identity. Traditionally, Google had what are now known as Primitive Roles – which were a standard set of 3 – namely, ‘Owner’, ‘Editor’ and or ‘Viewer’.

However, in GCP IAM, Google has gone not one but two steps further – with Predefined Roles and Custom Roles – in allowing administrators a wider range of options when it comes to assigning roles (and therefore, access to do less or more) to the organization’s resources.

With what are known as Predefined Roles, granular separation of duties, such as Instance Admin and Network Admin to name a few, is made possible. Custom Roles, as the name suggests, are roles which administrators can customize based on the organization’s needs.

Resource

As defined by Google, “resources are the fundamental components that make up all GCP services”, and include Cloud Pub/Sub topics, Compute Engine Virtual Machines, Cloud Storage Buckets, and App Engine Instances.

These resources can then be grouped into projects. Administrators can assign permissions based on different roles to identities in their organization in order to provide them with access to specific resources. On the other hand, they can also provide access to projects, which will then provide users with access to all resources under the project.

In the GCP hierarchy, a group of projects can also be placed under a team, teams can be placed under a department and departments can be placed under the organization. Administrators can decide the level of access they wish to give each user based on this hierarchy.

GCP IAM is great, but….

Despite the extensive control it provides to administrators, and the numerous possibilities in authorizing user access, GCP IAM has one downside.

Organizations today utilize a wide range of applications, not all of them being GCP resources. They may use a combination of resources from Amazon Web Services, IBM or Azure, to name a few, and GCP IAM does not support identity and access management on these resources. Its lack of capability to connect with on-prem identity providers such as Microsoft Active Directory and OpenLDAP is another major roadblock.

Looking for one IAM to manage them all? Try Akku, one of the best identity and access management solutions from CloudNow, that can help you manage identities across your on-premise and cloud-based applications seamlessly!