Single Sign-on (SSO) is characterized by which of the following advantages?

Single Sign-on (SSO) offers two primary advantages. The most visible benefit is convenience for the end-user, who only needs to authenticate once with a single set of credentials to access multiple applications and services. The second, equally important advantage is centralized administration. SSO systems rely on a central Identity Provider (IdP) to manage user identities, credentials, and authentication policies. This centralization simplifies administrative tasks such as user provisioning, password resets, and revoking access, thereby improving security posture and reducing administrative overhead.

A. Convenience: This option is correct but incomplete. It only captures the user-facing benefit and omits the critical advantage of centralized management for administrators.

C. Convenience and centralized data administration: This is incorrect because SSO centralizes the administration of identities and access, not the application-specific data, which remains under the control of individual service providers.

D. Convenience and centralized network administration: This is incorrect. SSO is an Identity and Access Management (IAM) function, which is distinct from network administration that deals with infrastructure like routers, switches, and firewalls.

1. NIST Special Publication 800-63-3

Digital Identity Guidelines. Section 4.3

"Federated Identity and Single Sign-On

" describes how federation (the underlying technology for many SSO systems) improves the user experience (convenience) and allows for the centralized management of authentication and user attributes by an Identity Provider.

2. Stallings

W.

& Brown

L. (2018). Computer Security: Principles and Practice (4th ed.). In Chapter 4

"Access Control

" the text discusses SSO systems like Kerberos and federated identity management. It explains that these systems are designed to provide a single login for users while centralizing the authentication service

which is a form of centralized administration.

3. University of California

Berkeley

Information Security Office. (n.d.). Single Sign-On (SSO). The documentation explains that SSO "improves user experience by reducing password fatigue" (convenience) and "strengthens security by providing administrators a central point of control over user authentication." This directly supports both aspects of the correct answer.