Patent ID: 8327429

Claim:
A system for authenticating a security token for access to at least one business application managed by one of a plurality of business units in an enterprise, comprising: an identity manager processor coupled to memory and being programmed for: creating a unique user identification for each of a plurality of security token requests and assigning and activating a security token associated with a unique token identifier for each of said security token requests; creating and storing user profiles consisting at least in part of said user identification and unique token identifier in a single sign-on user store database for ones of said security tokens upon a determination that said ones of said security tokens are used for authentication to business applications in only one of said plurality of business units; declining to create user profiles for other ones of said security tokens upon a determination that said other ones of said security tokens are used for authentication to business applications in more than one of said plurality of business units; an authentication broker processor coupled to memory and programmed for: receiving one of said security tokens for which a user profile was created from a single sign-on authentication application of the at least one business application; looking up the security token and its unique token identifier in said user profile stored in said single sign-on user store database to identify a token type and a corresponding token domain of the security token; invoking an authentication plug-in of the identified token type to connect to the corresponding token domain of the security token; and receiving an authentication status for the security token from the corresponding token domain and passing the authentication status to the single sign-on authentication application of the at least one business application.