June is a big month for Okta. It’s when we get the results of Gartner’s annual Magic Quadrant for Access Management, Worldwide (spoiler alert: we’re a Leader, again). It also marks Pride month for the LGBTQ+ community. In addition to “pride-i-fying” our social profiles, our employee resource group, Pride@Okta, helps the company come together to…

Biometric authentication — using the unique biological characteristics of an individual to verify their identity — has been around since the dawn of humankind. Think about it: humans use facial and voice recognition every day to identify each other. Signature recognition came about when the first contracts were originally created, and fingerprints…

In recent years, the threat of cyber attacks has grown steadily. Many large enterprises have suffered devastating attacks, despite having security resources in place. Why are so many falling prey to attacks? The answers are manifold, but one of the leading causes is the misuse and abuse of privileges, opening up an easy path for attackers to…

I think a lot about the unique position those of us in the corporate social impact field are in, and what a privilege it is to help others give back. I feel incredibly lucky to lead social impact work for a company like Okta, with an engaged ecosystem of employees, partners and customers who are all passionate about doing more for their…

Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) is a Single Sign-On (SSO) solution created by Microsoft. As a component of Windows Server operating systems, it provides users with authenticated access to applications that are not capable of using Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA) through Active Directory (AD). Developed to provide flexibility,…

Selections from the top news items this week in the world of identity and application security. IDENTITY + THE CLOUD Why Do We Care So Much About Privacy? From The New Yorker: The reason you’ve been receiving a steady stream of privacy-policy updates from online services, some of which you may have forgotten you ever subscribed to, is that the…

Cloud computing has become a cornerstone of doing business today, and it’s no surprise that companies worldwide are adopting the cloud for better security, reduced costs, and central application access. Yet many organizations are still unsure how to contend with legacy systems and out-of-date architecture to running 100% in the cloud. The…

Imagine the havoc a sophisticated threat actor could wreak by tricking a user into downloading and executing malicious code that current security products deem as safe. They can get access to personal data, financial details, or sensitive insider information. That scenario is precisely what could happen based on new research published today from…

Selections from the top news items this week in the world of identity and application security. Identity + the Cloud I followed the CEO of $6 billion Okta around and learned the secrets of a tech conference that landed President Obama as a speaker From Business Insider: Last week, the conference center at the Aria hotel in Las Vegas was abuzz with…

Adaptive Multi-factor Authentication is a powerful feature that adds flexibility to Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Depending on your login context – for example, I'm accessing the system from a country I never did before – the MFA authentication is required. In simple words: with Adaptive MFA, depending on your context, the MFA shows up (or…