Contents Introduction
Single Sign on is used for authenticating one set of user credentials for several permitted applications. Conversely, Single Signoff is where the user terminates session with all the software applications simultaneously. It mitigates the risk to access third party sites, prevents the need of re-entering passwords for the same username or identity, reduces the fatigue of remembering or creating various passwords for different sites, etc. Single Sign on is used for enhancing user experience and so the only set of user credentials must be secured right. Although it has lot of advantages, it poses major security risk since the attacker can easily navigate through, if the main credentials are leaked out. This calls for a strong authentication mechanism that should be adopted in order to make the process secure and efficient at the same time. The authentication mechanisms considered here are HTTP basic authentication and OTP based authentication. These are implemented in java and hosted in Virtual Private Network using Amazon Web Services (AWS). Also, cloud platforms like AWS and OpenStack are analysed and compared to justify the use of the same for this application.
