What is Single Sign-On (SSO)?
Do you know, the word why can create more impact than the word what. So why not start with the word why?
Why do we need Single Sign-On?
Let us consider, your company or organization usage the following applications — Slack, Zoom, Postman and Dropbox. So each time you want to login, either you need to remember the username & password of each application or store it in somewhere. But in this busy world no one wants to fall into the hustle and bustle of remembering username and password.
So what if I tell you that, you can sign in to all the applications with one single username and password? How does that sound? You don’t even need to type the username and password once you are logged in. Let’s say you want to access Slack, (if you are not logged in) the system will ask you to login. Now after sometime, you want to access Zoom, now the system will not ask you for any credentials again as you have already logged in. Isn’t it awesome?
To get more clear view, you can consider all the Google Services like Gmail, Youtube, Adsense, Google Drive etc. If you login to any one of the google services such as Youtube, you are automatically authenticated to other Google services like Gmail, Google Drive etc.
So, what is SSO?
Single Sign-in On (aka SSO) is an authentication method that lets users access multiple applications and services with one single set of credentials by avoiding repetitive credential entry.
How does Single Sign-in On works (A bit technical definition)?
Whenever a user signs in to an SSO service, the service creates an authentication token . An authentication token is a piece of digital information stored either in the user’s browser or within the SSO service’s servers. Any app the user accesses will check with the SSO service. The SSO service passes the user’s authentication token to the app and the user is allowed in. If, however, the user has not yet signed in, they will be prompted to do so through the SSO service.
Confusion about the term SSO
Sometimes Same Sign On is also called as SSO. A Same Sign On refers to systems requiring authentication for each application but using the same credentials from a directory server, whereas single sign-on refers to systems where a single authentication provides access to multiple applications by passing the authentication token seamlessly to configured applications.
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