Concepts of Federated Identity Management

Federated identity management enables authorized users to access multiple platforms using a single set of credentials. To learn more about it, read our text.

In the past, each website or application required a set of credentials. This meant every time you wanted to access a service, you had to create a username and password, which were stored on that platform.

Thus, when accessing the website again, it was necessary to re-enter the credentials because the users did not remain connected, even if the websites were managed by the same organization.

Also, when companies wanted to transfer user credentials from one domain to another, they had to use a new authentication system.

As the internet became more complex, developers realized this authentication system was not scalable and federated identity management would be the best solution in this regard.

In this article, we discuss federated identity management and its different concepts. To facilitate your reading, we divided the text into the following topics:

1. What Is a Federated Identity System?

2. What Is the Difference Between SSO and Federated Identity?

3. What Is SAML Federated Identity?

4. What Are the Two Components of a Federated Identity System?

5. Advantages of Federated Identity

6. senhasegura and AuthID Integration

7. About senhasegura

8. Conclusion

Enjoy the read!

1. What Is a Federated Identity System?

A federated identity is a system that enables authorized users to access different services using a single set of credentials securely and efficiently.

In practice, when a company implements this solution, its users can access Active Directory, partner websites, and web applications, among other services without logging in separately.

2. What Is the Difference Between SSO and Federated Identity?

Single sign-on (SSO) is a solution that allows users to access multiple platforms through a single set of credentials. In practice, when the user logs into an SSO service, they have access to connected websites and applications, without having to log in again.

That is, SSO is a feature of federated identity management and makes it possible to provide secure logins to users, while federated identity management itself provides access to resources from various organizations.

3. What Is SAML?

SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) is a protocol used to enable identity providers (IdP) to pass authorization credentials to service providers (SP). With this, one can use a single set of credentials to access different services.

For standardized communications between the identity provider and service providers, SAML transactions use Extensible Markup Language (XML). SAML connects the authentication of a user’s identity to the authorization for using a service.

4. What Are the Two Components of a Federated Identity System?

The federated identity covers two concepts: Identity Provider (IdP) and Service Provider (SP).

The first consists of an entity that creates and manages user identities and authenticates them for other applications where IdP is required.

The second refers to an entity that provides web services. In practice, SPs do not authenticate users on their own, but need the IdP to authenticate them.

5. Advantages of Federated Identity

Federated identity management brings several advantages to users. Among them, we can highlight:

• Improved security: In traditional authentication systems, users need to log in to each platform they access, using a set of credentials.
  In contrast, the federated option allows the user to securely authenticate across multiple websites and applications. With the reduction in the number of logins, the risks of invasion also decrease;
• Secure resource sharing: With federated identity management, one can share resources and data without risking security. Moreover, by storing user data with an IdP, companies simplify their data management process;
• Improved user experience: With federated identity management, users need to authenticate themselves once to have access to various services, which provides convenience in their work routine;
• Single-point provisioning: Federated identity management also enables single-point provisioning, which facilitates user access, even if the user is outside the company area; and
• Cost reduction: Organizations don’t need to create their own SSO solutions or manage multiple user identities, which reduces their costs.

6. senhasegura and AuthID Integration

senhasegura has developed integration with several identity providers. One of these providers is AuthID, a federated identity management solution that allows you to use the same login to access various services, in addition to the following benefits:

• Integration with existing IAM in the solution in minutes ? through OpenID or API options;
• Interruption of cyber threats;
• Recovery and biometric MFA;
• Elimination of password costs and risks with portable identity; and
• Federated identity ? SaaS, cloud, and legacy applications.

7. About senhasegura

We, from senhasegura, are part of MT4 Tecnologia, a group of companies specializing in digital security founded in 2001 and operating in more than 50 countries.

Our main objective is to provide our public with digital sovereignty and cybersecurity, granting control over privileged actions and data and avoiding breaches and leaks of information.

For this, we follow the lifecycle of privileged access management through machine automation, before, during, and after accesses. We also:

• Avoid interruption of companies’ activities, which may impair their performance;
• Offer advanced PAM solutions;
• Automatically audit privileged changes in order to identify privilege abuses;
• Automatically audit the use of privileges;
• Reduce cyber threats;
• Bring organizations into compliance with audit criteria and standards such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, and Sarbanes-Oxley.

8. Conclusion

In this article, we shared concepts related to federated identity management. If you liked our content, share it with someone who might be interested in the topic.