Windows NTLM Vs Cyberoam Clientless Single Sign On Authentication

Single Sign On (SSO) is the ability of a user to authenticate himself to a network one time, and thereafter to have access to all authorized network resources without additional authentication.

What is NTLM?

NTLM is a suite of authentication and session security protocols used in various Microsoft network protocol implementations. It is used throughout Microsoft's systems as an integrated single sign-on mechanism.

What is CTAS?

Cyberoam introduces Clientless Single Sign On as a Cyberoam Transparent Authentication Suite (CTAS).

With Single Sign On authentication, user automatically logs on to the Cyberoam when logs on to Windows through his windows username and password. Hence, eliminating the need of multiple logins and username & passwords.

But, Clientless Single Sign On not only eliminates the need to remember multiple passwords - Windows and Cyberoam, it also eliminates the installation of SSO clients on each workstation. Hence, delivering high ease-of-use to end-users, higher levels of security in addition to lowering operational costs involved in client installation.

NTLM CTAS OS dependency Yes It can authenticate only systems are running on the Windows platform only. No It can authenticate domain irrespective of the operating system they have on their computers. It works with Windows, Macintosh & Linux. Applications supported Only browser-based applications and Microsoft implementations of SMTP, POP3, IMAP (all part of exchange). User has to authenticate for each application he wants to use. All the applications Re-authentication is not required in order to access any application. Processing load System load increases as each new session gets authenticated when a new browser instance is opened. As the user is authenticated just once and agent polls the log off information, system is not burdened on sending keep alive messages to Cyberoam.