Single sign-on (SSO) and 1Password make a great team. Separately, 1Password and SSO each reduce your attack surface by securely logging you in to sites and services you use to get things done. Together, they’re a powerful risk reduction duo.
And we’re working with 1Password Business customers to unlock the true power of that combination. More on that in a bit.
Let’s talk about why SSO and 1Password are better together, and where the pairing can go from here to improve your security posture by:
- Streamlining security policies.
- Simplifying administration and onboarding for IT.
- Improving the sign-in experience for your workforce (and why that matters for security).
How SSO simplifies your security posture
First, a quick primer on SSO and how it fits into your enterprise security framework.
If you’re not using a single sign-on provider like Okta, Google Workspace, or Microsoft Azure Active Directory to sign in to work services, it’s up to each worker to create their own logins for every service they use. Usually, that login consists of a username and password. They might use a social service like Google to log in, or have two-factor authentication enabled.
Regardless, if it’s being used for work, there’s a chance that sensitive company data resides somewhere on the account, which makes it a potential target for cybercriminals. If those credentials are compromised, attackers have a way in (potentially to multiple services, if the credentials have been reused elsewhere). SSO brings all those logins under the umbrella of one strongly vetted identity.
Instead of signing into each site and service individually, workers log on to the SSO platform. From there, the SSO provider can then log them in to each service using that one identity. It’s a much simpler experience for workers, and allows IT and leadership to consolidate security policies to make reporting and compliance significantly easier.
All told, SSO can:
- Reduce your attack surface.
- Strengthen your minimum security requirements.
- Reduce IT support costs (by reducing your attack surface).
- Provide a better experience for workers.
- Create a centralized directory of all employees in the company to simplify onboarding and offboarding.
How 1Password simplifies your security posture
What about those logins that aren’t covered under SSO? That’s where 1Password comes in. For every login not covered by your SSO platform, 1Password makes it easy to create strong, unique logins that are protected by 1Password’s security model, easily shared with colleagues when needed, and easily managed by administrators.
If you use Google or another service to log into a site – 1Password will handle that for you, too, along with protecting other sensitive data like payment cards, secure notes and documents. And it’ll make it all easy to manage with granular access controls, an easy-to-read insights dashboard, secure item sharing… you get the idea.
Together, SSO and 1Password form a line of defense that stretches across all the sites and services that anyone in your company accesses.
SSO and 1Password: closing the gaps in your security perimeter
To recap, 1Password and SSO provide comprehensive protection for businesses looking to reduce their risk and simplify security for their workforce.
But there are more benefits there for the taking – if 1Password and SSO work in tandem. Security, compliance, reporting, auditing would be easier. Onboarding and offboarding times would be drastically reduced.
And, perhaps most importantly, it would improve the employee experience.
Security tools are only effective if people use them, so great usability can go a long way towards reducing your attack surface. In short, security tools have to make your life easier in order to make them more secure. Take Duke University, who tripled their password manager adoption after migrating to 1Password, bringing all those formerly stray logins under the protection of 1Password.
Great usability is a win for security.
Coming soon: unlock with Okta
That’s why we’ve been working with 1Password Business customers to bring 1Password and SSO together so you can unlock 1Password with Okta. Doing so will not only combine the benefits of 1Password and SSO, but simplify security across the board with a unified experience that makes workers' lives easier. And that makes it easier for security teams to do their jobs, too.
Support for other leading identity providers is coming soon. Reach out to be the first to know about the latest updates and integrations.
Graham Jackson
Senior Product Marketing Manager
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