The Seven Flaws of Identity Management: Usability and Security Challenges

Web identity management systems are complex systems with powerful features - and many potential vulnerabilities. They aim to facilitate the management of identifiers, credentials, personal information, and the presentation of this information to other parties. In many schemes, an identity provider (IdP) issues identities or credentials to users, while a relying party (RP) depends on the IdP to check the user credentials before it allows users access to Web site services. By separating the role of and IdP from the RP, identity management systems let users leverage one identifier across multiple Web services.