Authentication Solutions - By Industry

Insurance

Challenge

Information needs to move quickly in the insurance industry, and for that reason, organizations in this sector need to provide their users with the ability to access information easily.  Enabling single sign-on is a high priority because it allows users to get to the applications they need to perform their jobs without repeated password prompts or the need to remember multiple passwords. 

Insurance companies utilize several enterprise applications to facilitate the exchange of information and, as a result, both the IT administrators and the company’s end-users find there are numerous passwords to be managed, which consumes time and increases the number of password-related calls to the Help Desk.  Nonetheless, attempting to achieve single or reduced sign-on to the applications in their organization can pose a challenge for insurance companies, as these applications tend to be dissimilar.

Insurance companies not only need to gain more simplified access but comply with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) Act by ensuring that access is highly secure and customer data is protected from unauthorized persons.  For that reason, insurance companies need a solution that provides both single sign-on and strong authentication security.

Solution

PistolStar’s Password Power and PortalGuard provide single sign-on using Active Directory with Kerberos, allowing end-users to use one password one time to access numerous enterprise applications, directories and servers, such as Lotus Domino and Notes, IBM WebSphere and System i, SAP and Oracle.  By integrating the Kerberos authentication protocol, PistolStar adds a layer of security because the end-user and the server to which they want to gain access are mutually authenticated.  Kerberos also does not send any passwords over the network.

Password Power and PortalGuard also enable access via a Web browser, giving roaming end-users easy access to the applications they need and further simplifying access for all.  End-users benefit from having fast and convenient logons, which free up time, allow them to be more efficient and, ultimately, boost productivity.

PortalGuard also provides functionality that enables administrators to meet or exceed their security objectives.  Administrators can implement best practices for ensuring stronger and consistently secure authentication such as requiring a username, password and challenge question response to gain access and multiple challenge questions for self-service password reset and recovery.  Password rules can be established by person, group or hierarchy and enable/disable certain password behaviors.  For example, administrators can configure the number of password strike-outs allowed for each user and receive an alert when a strike count is exceeded.  They also have the ability to:

• Prevent multiple users from logging in with the same credentials;
• Set password expiration intervals;
• Select a grace period for expired passwords;
• Lock out inactive users;
• Restricts the frequency with which a previously-used password can be re-used; and
• Validate password strength during login.

Administrators can also control password quality by configuring 12 fully customizable password strength rules.