Single Sign-On : Risks and Opportunities of Using SSO (Single Sign-On) in a Complex System Environment with Focus on Overall Security Aspects

Main concern of this thesis is to help design a secure and reliable network system which keeps growing in complexity due to the interfaces with multiple logging sub-systems and to ensure the safety of the network environment for everyone involved. The parties somewhat involved in network systems are always in need of developing new solutions to security problems and striving to have a secure access into a network so as to fulfil their job in safe computing environments. Implementation and use of SSO (Single Sign-On) offering secure and reliable network in complex systems has been specifically defined for the overall security aspects of enterprises. The information to be used within and out of organization was structured layer by layer according to the organizational needs to define the sub-systems. The users in the enterprise were defined according to their role based profiles. Structuring the information layer by layer was shown to improve the level of security by providing multiple authentication mechanisms. Before implementing SSO system necessary requirements are identified. Thereafter, user identity management and different authentication mechanisms were defined together with the network protocols and standards to insure a safe exchange of information within and outside the organization. A marketing research was conducted in line of the SSO solutions. Threat and risk analysis was conducted according to ISO/IEC 27003:2010 standard. The degree of threat and risk were evaluated by considering their consequences and possibilities. These evaluations were processed by risk treatments. MoDAF (Ministry of Defence Architecture Framework) used to show what kind of resources, applications and the other system related information are needed and exchanged in the network. In essence some suggestions were made concerning the ideas of implementing SSO solutions presented in the discussion and analysis chapter