Prudential Uses Single Sign-On

As insurance companies move more customer-facing applications to the Web, security is becoming a larger problem. In many cases, the need for security is hampering clients' abilities to efficiently access online capabilities.

In response to complaints from its field force that it was too difficult to manage as many as 22 log-ons and up to 12 different passwords for access to various applications and networks, Prudential Financial ($371 billion in assets, Newark, NJ) has deployed Passlogix's (New York) v-Go single sign-on software on its sales professionals' laptops.

"In 1998 we rolled out laptops to our field force, and included on those laptops were applications that required passwords," says Bob Davies, vice president of information systems. "Shortly thereafter members of the field force indicated that the number of log-ons were a problem."

Single sign-on, which has been around for about 10 years, is not so much a security tool as it is an administrative workload reducer, according to John Garber, vice president of marketing and chief strategic officer, Cryptek Secure Communications (Chantilly, VA), a secure communication products provider. However, "single sign-on solutions look at security in a peripheral way," says Garber. "The reasoning behind a single sign-on solution is, if someone has only one password to remember, then they won't be writing down a million to be left around. Passlogix automatically interfaces to many applications and you can authenticate many things. Passlogix's v-GO single sign-on looks good to me."

Cost-Effective Solution

According to Prudential's Davies, Passlogix's software was chosen because it is cost effective and supportsPrudential Financial's field force without performance degradation. "v-GO single sign-on authenticates directly from the client—avoiding the costs of dedicated servers and related response times issues," says Davies. It supports both dial-in and disconnected usages.