How businesses can avoid "exposure": celebrity photo thefts highlight the importance of strong passwords

Next generation single sign-on solution addresses security gap for businesses of all sizes

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Sep 11, 2014, 01:10 ET

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Last week, Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities had indiscrete photos stolen and distributed across the Internet. It's speculated that their accounts were accessed by a "brute force" attack—which can only be successful if their passwords were weak.

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In era of password vulnerability, Intermedia AppID makes single sign-on available to all businesses (PRNewsFoto/Intermedia) (PRNewsFoto/Intermedia)

Weak passwords are a risk for businesses, too. Verizon found that 76% of all network intrusions exploit weak or stolen passwords.

To protect critical data, every employee at every business must use strong passwords (which have no fewer than 12 characters). But with an average of 14.3 apps per business, users are likely to take shortcuts by creating passwords that are easy to memorize – and easy to crack.

Single sign-on helps enforce strong password usage… if you could afford it
A single sign-on (SSO) solution stores passwords for users and automatically logs them in to their apps. Users only have to remember one password, so they're more likely to create strong passwords instead of weak ones.

Unfortunately, SSO has historically been extremely complex to deploy, requiring on-site consultants and costly training. Which means smaller businesses have found SSO to be out of reach.

Intermedia AppID™ now makes single sign-on available to any business
Intermedia, the largest one-stop shop for cloud IT services for SMBs, has designed its new AppID service to be simple to deploy by any businesses, regardless of size or IT sophistication.

Existing Intermedia customers can deploy AppID in a single click, and non-Intermedia customers can easily integrate it with any on-premises Active Directory. While Intermedia's Cloud Concierge™ team is standing by 24/7 for deployment assistance, no training is necessary for either admins or users.

Learn more about single sign-on and Intermedia AppID at Intermedia.net/AppID.

How single sign-on protects you in an era of vulnerable passwords
A single sign-on solution stores passwords and automatically logs users in with a single click. This provides employees with access to all their cloud apps using just one login and password for all their apps. This improves security in a number of ways:

With just one password to remember, users are much more likely to use a strong one
Admins can enforce 2-factor authentication as an added layer of security
Access to the entire portal can be deprovisioned in just one click

Hardened security even beyond strong passwords
In August, the 2014 Rogue Access Study by Osterman Research and Intermedia found that 89% of ex-employees retained access to corporate applications from former employers. AppID slashes the potential for rogue access by making it much easier for IT to manage and track access to apps.

QUOTES
Patrick Ford, IT director for Magellan Search and Staffing, an Intermedia AppID customer, said: "The fewer passwords people have to remember, the better! With just one login required to access all their apps, users save up to an hour a day by not having to type in passwords or search for them. And I get back a full eight-hour day per week to do things not related to break-fix or password retrieval."

Michael Gold, president of Intermedia, said: "The explosive growth in cloud-based web apps has created a need for stronger password security. AppID extends the protection and ease-of-use afforded by a single sign-on portal to any business. And it is simple to deploy and manage, which further allows smaller businesses to compete cost effectively against larger enterprises."

ABOUT INTERMEDIA
Intermedia is the world's largest one-stop shop for cloud business applications. Its Office in the Cloud™ suite integrates all of the essential IT services that SMBs need to do business, including email, voice, file sync and share, single sign-on, security, mobility, archiving and more.

All its services are integrated, secure, mobile-ready and managed from a single control panel. And they all offer enterprise-grade security, 99.999% availability and 24/7 phone support with hold times of less than 60 seconds.

Intermedia's 600 employees work relentlessly to provide its 60,000 customers, 1 million users and 5,000 active partners with a Worry-free Experience™. Learn more at Intermedia.net.

Media Contact:
Kristen Berry
(650) 691-7318
[email protected]

To view the multimedia assets associated with this release, please click: http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7286151-intermedia-appid-single-sign-on-passwords-one-click-access

SOURCE Intermedia