Single Sign-on - Security

Security

In March, 2012, a research paper reported an extensive study on the security of social login mechanisms. The authors found 8 serious logic flaws in high-profile ID providers and relying party websites, such as OpenID (including Google ID and PayPal Access), Facebook, Janrain, Freelancer, FarmVille, Sears.com, etc. Because the researchers informed ID providers and relying party websites prior to public announcement of the discovery of the flaws, the vulnerabilities were corrected, and there have been no security breaches reported.

The problem we see now is that many websites are adopting Facebook’s “Connect” and OpenID to allow for one-click logins to access a website. You sometimes don’t even have the choice of making a separate account on that site, meaning you can’t “opt out” of these SSOs. Sure, your information stays safe with that site, but it’s also stored within a central database under Facebook’s control. While there’s nothing wrong with this, there’s just too much risk involved in putting all your sensitive data from all over the web into one massive identity bubble. —"Does Facebook Federation Have Your Best Interests At Heart?

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Famous quotes containing the word security:

    It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it ... and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied ... and it is all one.
    M.F.K. Fisher (b. 1908)

    A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
    Second Amendment, U.S. Constitution (1791)

    Is a Bill of Rights a security for [religious liberty]? If there were but one sect in America, a Bill of Rights would be a small protection for liberty.... Freedom derives from a multiplicity of sects, which pervade America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.
    James Madison (1751–1836)