Okta is a platform used for identity management that gives all the employees of the company access to its software with just one login. It is a system in IDaas (Identity-as-a-Service) category which uses cloud software enabling companies to manage and secure user authentications into applications efficiently.
You can access your applications at any point of time from anywhere using Okta, as it is available on smartphones, tablets, computer systems, and laptops. Since it is important to control access to applications in this digital transformation age, where companies are shifting to cloud solutions, it should be done securely.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become a common practice of working on a laptop from different places outside the office; people often check their emails on their smartphones. Due to all these developments, security has become a major concern and therefore we require more than one password. Okta is nonetheless the modern form of single sign-on (SSO). You can use the multifactor authentication (MFA) from Okta, to make your SSO as secured as possible.
However, in January 2022, Okta’s security was breached by the Lapsus$ Hacking and Extortion group, which came to light by March 2022. Among several big-name companies, Okta is one of the companies targeted for hacking in recent months. Let us have a detailed look at the Okta security breach.
Okta Breach
Lapsus$, a hacking group, claiming to have compromised Okta’s internal systems, posted some screenshots of Okta’s super admin dashboard, slack channels, and JIRA board on the Telegram channel owned by them.
According to Okta’s CSO’s response blog on the same, the incident as stated by Lapsus$ had happened in January 2021, when Okta detected the account of a customer support engineer, who was working for a third-party service provider, being compromised by the workers.
Okta terminated the user’s active sessions, suspended the account of the customer support engineer, and alerted the service provider. Moreover, the company took the help of a third-party forensics firm for further investigation of the breach. Based on the pertinent information, the company found out that hackers had access to the engineer’s laptop in January 2022 for five days.
However, if we look at the claims made by Lapsus$, they found Okta storing AWS keys in Slack channels and gained access to its systems for about two months. Additionally, the hacker group stated that they used Okta’s access to focus on its customers.
What is Okta?
Okta is a security agent that secures our PCs, smartphones, and tablets by enforcing configurable policies. It protects our personal information and saves us time. Instead of logging in to each application individually, users can log in to all of them at once.
It also saves us money because it is provided at a low cost to all small and large businesses. It functions as a manager, managing and protecting all of our apps, which greatly assists us in running our business and growing our organization.
Furthermore, Okta allows you to use a single password to log into numerous apps at the same time. It also keeps your app’s authentication up to date, allowing only authorized users to use it. Some management systems are simply toolkits that connect your users to your apps, which is a time-consuming procedure, but Okta integrates your applications for you.
It allows for seamless connection with web applications. SWA technology was developed by Okta for applications that do not use SSO. With Okta, we can control who has access to any application on any device, whether it’s employees, partners, or anyone.
Why is Okta Important?
Increase Efficiency
The company wants to be more efficient, but not at the expense of security, profit, or growth. That involves working out ways to improve business processes or automate dull, repetitive tasks, or free up IT’s time by delivering software and IAM solutions that are geared to handle requests more efficiently.
Almost 80 percent of employees when asked, said password resets were a problem in their workplace, putting a strain on IT personnel at the expense of productivity.
Businesses that utilize Okta have experienced a 57 percent reduction in password-related helpdesk tickets, as well as improved service standards and customer experience.
Greater Productivity
Firms benefit from increased productivity since it helps them become more lucrative and achieve long-term growth, but they can’t be productive because it helps them develop their businesses. The consequences of users being unable to access the services they require are evident.
According to a poll, 71 percent of respondents claimed that using Okta reduced the time it took to provision and de-provision a user, and 83 percent said their firms were more productive. This is proof that IT teams can thrive when menial activities are streamlined and automated.
Cost Savings
It is the main concern for any organization, and we can estimate that by deploying Okta, businesses will witness yearly time savings in passwords, which is related to $1.6 million in helpdesk tickets, and next annual savings of over $800,000 in request provisioning.
Using Okta has resulted in significant cost savings for a variety of customers. Bakers Delight saved $500,000 in the first nine months of adopting Okta due to their new seamless ability to enter into the supplier’s site and order online, while Rotary saved $300,000 each year by using the Okta platform to provide identity-related services to 1.2 million users.
Easy and Secure Experiences
Protection is a significant worry for any organization functioning in today’s digital world, with 84 percent of employees ranking it as their top concern. It assists enterprises in navigating an increasingly hostile security landscape by providing an IAM solution that safeguards their environment while also providing a frictionless user experience.
