Practice : Identity Federation

Purpose and Strategic Importance

Identity Federation allows users to access multiple systems using a single, trusted identity provider. It simplifies authentication, enhances security, and improves user experience by enabling seamless Single Sign-On (SSO) across organisational and application boundaries.

By consolidating identity management, Identity Federation supports Zero Trust principles, reduces credential sprawl, and enables consistent policy enforcement across distributed environments.

Description of the Practice

  • Identity Federation delegates authentication to an external, trusted identity provider (IdP), such as Azure AD, Okta, Ping, or Google Workspace.
  • Common protocols include SAML, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and SCIM.
  • Federation supports use cases like workforce SSO, customer identity and access management (CIAM), and cross-cloud access.
  • Enables central policy control, improved access auditing, and reduced attack surfaces.

How to Practise It (Playbook)

1. Getting Started

  • Select a standards-compliant IdP aligned with your organisation’s authentication strategy.
  • Identify systems that require SSO or consolidated access and support federation protocols.
  • Configure service providers to trust the IdP using protocol-specific integrations (e.g. OIDC, SAML).
  • Establish trust relationships and map identity claims to application-level roles.

2. Scaling and Maturing

  • Expand federation to internal, third-party, and cloud-based applications.
  • Implement just-in-time (JIT) provisioning and SCIM for automated user lifecycle management.
  • Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) through the federated IdP.
  • Use conditional access policies (e.g. device trust, geo-location) to govern access contextually.
  • Regularly audit federated trust relationships and identity mappings.

3. Team Behaviours to Encourage

  • Design systems to trust identity, not networks.
  • Standardise on protocols and claims to ease federation at scale.
  • Coordinate closely with IAM and security teams to align roles and policies.
  • Monitor authentication flows and access failures for insight and hardening.

4. Watch Out For…

  • Misconfigured trust policies that allow privilege escalation.
  • Inconsistent claims or role mappings across applications.
  • Over-reliance on a single IdP without redundancy or fallback.
  • Lack of visibility into external authentication failures or outages.

5. Signals of Success

  • Users access multiple systems with a single, secure login experience.
  • Central policies enforce identity-based access consistently across the estate.
  • Federation enables cross-org or third-party collaboration without credential sharing.
  • Identity lifecycle and role management are automated and compliant.
  • Federation supports the broader Zero Trust and least-privilege access models.