MobileIron, the company that introduced the industry's first mobile-centric, zero trust platform for the enterprise, today announced the availability of zero sign-on technology for secure and passwordless authentication to enterprise cloud services from desktops. Users can now log into software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, such as Office 365 and Salesforce, from any laptop or desktop using their secured iPhone as their identity - eliminating the need for passwords entirely.

A zero password experience is critical as a recent IDG report revealed that enterprise users and security professionals alike are frustrated by the inefficiency and lax security of passwords for user authentication. Ninety percent of security professionals reported to have seen unauthorized access attempts because of stolen credentials, while 60 percent of employees claimed to feel disrupted, irritated and frustrated by passwords. Security leaders also estimated that they could reduce their risk of breach by almost half (43%) simply by eliminating passwords. And almost every security leader (86%) said they would eliminate passwords if they could.

Zero sign-on eliminates passwords as the method for user authentication, replacing single sign-on, which still requires at least one username and password. MobileIron's revolutionary zero sign-on experience is built on the company's leading unified endpoint management (UEM) platform and powered by the MobileIron Access solution. MobileIron's platform allows for policy enforcement and data protection, both on the device and on the network, with comprehensive correlation between the critical signals for zero trust: user, device, apps, networks, and threats.

"Passwords have remained one of the biggest security risks and continue to be one of the top causes of enterprise data breaches," said Simon Biddiscombe, CEO, MobileIron. "That's why MobileIron is ushering in a new era of user authentication with zero password access to business services. Making the world's most ubiquitous product - the mobile device - your digital ID and secure access to the enterprise provides the best user experience and significantly reduces the risk of data breaches. It's a win-win situation for both employees and security leaders."

A recent EMA research report confirmed that enabling mobile device authentication with biometric-based access bridges the gap between high security and low friction, creating a "best of both worlds" scenario. And Gartner recently identified passwordless authentication as a top emerging security and risk management trend for 2019, noting,"passwordless authentication,..., is starting to achieve real market traction." (Gartner Press Release, "Gartner Identifies the Top Seven Security and Risk Management Trends for 2019", March 5, 2019.)

MobileIron first paved the way for a zero sign-on enterprise with its Access product in 2017, which enabled zero sign-on to cloud services on managed devices. MobileIron is now extending this capability by making passwordless access to cloud services available from any iOS device, managed or unmanaged, using the mobile device as the user's secure ID. Support for Android will be available soon.