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Introduction
The pressure to increase productivity – among end-users and IT administrators alike – is an ongoing challenge for companies of all sizes. The abundance of on-line information and enterprise applications available to employees today ultimately improves productivity, potentially providing a competitive advantage in the market. But facilitating fast and secure access to that information is a complex and daunting task, often accompanied by specific government mandates. And every moment an employee is idle costs your company money and diminishes the enthusiasm of a new employee.
Now there is an integrated provisioning/SSO solution that automatically provides immediate and secure access to applications and networks, from the moment an employee begins working at your company, enabling full productivity from day one. The linking of initial account provisioning with the generation and ongoing management of user credentials in a seamless manner delivers a complete user access solution that immediately boosts user productivity and ensures greater overall security. And of equal importance, this linking provides the ability to efficiently revoke access the moment the employee resigns or is terminated. In most industries, the provisioning and deprovisioning of application access is no longer just a capability that provides a competitive advantage, it has become an important mandate. Make Employees Productive Right from the Start An integrated provisioning and SSO system gives employees instant, seamless access to applications without worrying about multiple passwords. With this streamlined approach, the end user simply logs on once to his network domain and upon launching an application, all of his SSO-enabled applications – whether client/server, Web, Terminal Emulator (TE) or legacy - are automatically signed on and immediately available. There is no time lag between provisioning and SSO, and productivity issues associated with forgotten passwords are minimized.
All of the security takes place behind the scenes - user accounts and application privileges are automatically created with strong application-specific passwords that fortify security without requiring users to remember numerous complex passwords.
Simplified Administration
With integrated provisioning and SSO, enrollment and administration is easy for users and administrators.
- New user accounts are automatically created, as well as initial passwords for each application.
- IT generates one username and password for the user to logon to his computer
- First time users are auto-enrolled to single sign-on and able to gain access to all applications.
- Ongoing change management for users and accounts is completely automated.
- User provisioning with automated bulk password change for all accounts auto-enrolls existing users.
The cost of password-related problems increases as the IT environment becomes more complex, the number of applications in use increases, and the number of users increase. An integrated provisioning/SSO solution that has the ability to replace multiple passwords and application logon events with a single, centrally-managed user logon reduces these existing costs in several ways, primarily by boosting user productivity and reducing the number of costly, forgotten passwordrelated help desk calls.
With AccountCourier’s Imprivata OneSign Connector, users and application credentials are automatically provisioned within the OneSign appliance.
Once the user has logged on, the OneSign Agent automatically downloads access policies and application credentials from the OneSign Appliance providing “Day One” single sign-on:
- Users never have to be given starting application passwords to individual applications, increasing application security.
- Users don’t have to search through emails looking for passwords, increasing productivity and eliminating password-related help desk calls.
- Single sign-on credentials are guaranteed to always be in sync with application credentials.
Tighten Enterprise Security
The combined solution provides the ability to change password constraints (minimum/maximum length, reset intervals, auto resets), manage authentication challenges, and accommodate application-generated password reset requests automatically. Another powerful feature of an integrated system is the ability to assign authentication and desktop policies to specific computers, essentially over-riding user-level settings. This gives IT greater flexibility over assigning policies, allowing organizations to make exceptions to the rule when necessary. The combination of two factor authentication and SSO ensures greater network security and user convenience without increasing help desk calls due to forgotten cards, badges or tokens.
Simplify Compliance with Government Regulations
The need to adhere to strict mandates — Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Sarbanes-Oxley, GLBA, HSPD-12, FIPS 201, and Basel II — from government and industry regulators requires that companies take significant steps to strengthen security.
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