3 Reasons Why You Need SSO for Secure Mobile Content

It’s the modern-day paradox of corporate content: you need it to be accessible on your employees’ smartphones, tablets, and desktops, yet it also has to be totally secure and protected. On the one hand, if you lock your content up behind an LMS or corporate intranet, your employees will be less than enthused (or simply unable) to access it on a small screen. And yet, if you commission a third-party agency to build you a mobile app, that app has likely been built for a moment in time, instead of designed for companies that undergo routine employee changes. So, with all of that in mind, what’s the best way to securely manage your users on mobile devices?

For starters, an app can be a good solution—as long as you have control over its content management. Look for an “off-the-shelf” mobile app, such as Inkling Axis, that allows you to easily distribute your corporate content without burdening IT. Next, make sure that your mobile app comes with single sign-on (SSO) capabilities, which avoids repeated log-ins when accessing corporate network resources. SSO is key for secure user management and has several features that offer you more control, and ultimately more protection, over your content.

Below, we’ve listed some of the key reasons that you need SSO for secure user management on mobile.

1. You’ll know who has access to your content.

Since your content often contains sensitive corporate and product information, it’s important to control who has the ability to access it at all times. Once an employee leaves your company, for example, you want to be sure that they can’t log back in.

With SSO, you’re able to transfer authentication responsibility from any third-party application back to your company, putting you in charge of quickly updating your user database. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that authorization, (which verifies that a user is allowed to access your material), must still be managed separately from the user authentication, (which verifies that a user is who they claim to be). Some SSO protocols, such as SAML 2.0, can help marry the two by providing user metadata.

2. It allows for one, unified password.

In the case of passwords, one is better than two. Studies have shown that with a single password, your employees will generally choose a stronger password, which means your content will have a lowered security risk.

SSO allows a user to use the same credentials in order to access many services, while providing the same (or better) levels of security. If your third-party application supports SSO, it makes sense to allow them to leverage your users’ existing credentials instead of creating new ones.

3. You won’t outsource your data.

With passwords, the less outsourced data, the better. Anytime that your third-party application manages employee data, it means that they’re in charge of retrieving or reseting those credentials, too. Not only does your IT team have to help your employees, then, but they also have to contact this third party for the information.

SSO allows the third party to use the credentials that you already manage and control, removing any need for your support team to get involved with that third party.

The bottom line:

When it comes to mobile content and secure user management, you can have it all. The secret? Single sign-on (SSO), which frees up your IT team from scrambling to retrieve outsourced passwords and allows your employees to use one, stronger password for all of their corporate content. You’ll be more comfortable about your content’s security, and your employees will feel comfortable being able to access it anywhere.

Now that you have secure mobile users, learn how to build great mobile content with our how-to guide, “4 Key mLearning Technology Trends to Implement Now.”