Logging in using different credentials on more than a dozen cloud platforms is not easy for employees and poses a great risk of cyberattacks on organizations. Password fatigue makes people use weak password combinations, exposing themselves to vulnerabilities. Learning what is identity federation would help modern companies solve the issue of logging in without compromising the security of their data.
Identity federation is a system that connects a single user identity across different organizations, software domains, and clouds. In this case, there is no need to register individual credentials for each application, because of the establishment of mutual trust between systems.
In such a scenario, the Identity Provider (IdP) authenticates the user’s identity only once and transmits a secure token, rather than credentials, to the application or Service Provider (SP).
The federated system uses open protocols for communication about user identity across external servers:
There are several strategic benefits of using federated authentication systems:
By using single sign on process, the employee can log in only once per day to gain access to all connected cloud applications, which reduces forgetting the password and improves productivity.
The security administrators have full control over the user’s permissions. Revocation of one main corporate account makes him disconnected from all connected cloud platforms.
To understand identity federation in-depth, organizations will be able to streamline the fragmented security architecture and provide enterprise-level protection. The integration of centralized access control with standardized protocols will allow companies to remove password barriers and establish a digital workplace securely.
Ans: A network connecting one digital identity among various independent software systems.
Ans: The use of secure tokens instead of real passwords during communication.
Ans: SAML, OAuth 2.0, and OpenID Connect
