Dive Brief:

• AWS launched a single sign-on (SSO) solution for cloud users with multiple AWS accounts and business applications on Thursday, according to a company announcement. The service allows users to avoid investing in and maintaining their own SSO infrastructure.
• SSO enables users to control access and grant permissions for all accounts in AWS Organizations. Customers can also make Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 integrations and "extend SSO access to any of [their] SAML-enabled apps," according to the announcement.
• The AWS SSO comes with no further cost to customers and is available in the Eastern region of the U.S. 

Dive Insight:

AWS is allowing customers to condense the authentication process with a single portal. The allure of an SSO portal is the convenience of reducing the number of credentials needed for system access.

A single point of access with one qualifying set of credentials also has the potential to reduce the risk of a security breach, which could impact a company's bottom line.

Enterprises designate about $74 billion to security efforts annually, but something as simple as mishandling credentials accounts for 81% of breaches. The majority of all security damage could be fundamentally reduced if companies chose to strengthen authentication protocols, which are the fabric of good security.

However, if a bad actor were to obtain a single password that can access multiple applications, the damages could prove catastrophic. To avoid unintentional access, companies need to augment SSO services with identity governance measures.