Automating Security Operations with Okta Workflows
Human actors still drive the vast majority of security breaches. In 2022, 82% of breaches involved the human element, whether it was the use of stolen credentials, phishing, misuse, or simply an error, according to Verizon's Data Breach Investigations. Yet, humans alone cannot protect against these threats. Security automation is critical to removing human error and responding instantly to threats from internal and external actors alike.
To help you automate security tasks, Okta offers solutions that include Okta Workflows identity automation and orchestration. The Okta platform already includes many capabilities that help protect your organization and your customers, including multifactor authentication (MFA), single sign-on (SSO), and passwordless authentication. Okta Workflows provides additional security capabilities that allow customers to automate security tasks and extend what the Okta platform does out of the box.
This blog post will discuss the new Okta Workflows security use cases and pre-built templates your team can automate quickly for a more secure and efficient environment.
Security solution packs
Okta Workflows allows customers to automate security tasks and extend the functionality of the Okta platform. With Workflows, customers can build identity-centric business processes using basic if-this-then-that logic and leverage the power of pre-built connectors, templates, and solution packs.
To help our customers get the most out of Okta Workflows, we’ve prepared a Security Operations Solution Pack that contains pre-built templates of the most common security tasks. Just choose the security use case you want to automate and go!
You can choose from three categories to begin automating your security framework:
- Protect company data
- Respond to risk signals
- Extend security audit and reporting
Solution Pack: Protect company data
Protect employee and customer data proactively. With Workflows, you can set up security notifications for tasks such as password changes, extend MFA with hardened customer verification, and more. Here are some pre-built templates you can deploy quickly
- Send a password change notification
- Notify a user when their profile is updated
- Trigger notifications when all MFA factors are reset
- Harden customer verification with an email factor challenge
Solution Pack: Respond to risk signals
Internal and external threats can cause a serious incident within minutes, making a fast response imperative. This Solution Pack makes it easy to automatically monitor and take action against such threats through templates that
- Track and alert for possible account takeover (ATO) attempts
- Revoke user sessions in Okta, Zoom, Google Workspace, and Microsoft Office 365
- Manage user devices and remotely lock devices with Jamf or Kandji
- Report suspicious activity
- Send suspicious activity event alerts using PagerDuty
- Quarantine an Okta user
Solution Pack: Extend security audit and reporting
Security auditing and reporting are important aspects of corporate governance – from helping to ensure compliance and maintain certifications to providing security-related metrics to IT teams. This solution pack helps mitigate risks from employees and contractors by identifying and acting on employee status events, with actions including auditing inactive users and managing access to sensitive applications based on certain factors.
The pre-built templates allow you to
- Identify inactive Okta users
- Manage access to GitHub repo based on Secure Code Warrior assessment status
The impact
The implementation of Okta Workflows can significantly impact organizations in terms of security, efficiency, and compliance. Some key benefits include:
- Improved security posture: By automating security tasks and enhancing the identity infrastructure, organizations can reduce the risk of security breaches and improve their overall security posture. This is particularly important in the face of today's fast-paced and sophisticated cyber threats.
- Increased efficiency: Okta Workflows helps organizations streamline their security operations by reducing manual processes and automating tasks. This saves time and resources, allowing security teams to focus on more strategic tasks.
- Compliance: Okta Workflows helps organizations comply with security policies and regulations by automating tasks such as suspension of inactive users and generating reports. This ensures that organizations are meeting the necessary standards for security and privacy.
How to use Workflows Solution Packs
Using Workflows Solution Packs is straightforward and can be done in just a few steps.
- Log in to your Workflows homepage
- Select the category you want to automate under “Explore popular use cases”
- Choose your use case and deploy the pre-built template
- Optional: customize the template as you see fit
Learn more
Get started with Workflows Solution Packs today and see the difference it can make for your business
