With HYPR's integration for Okta, you drastically reduce your attack surface while making login faster and simpler for your users. It turns an ordinary smartphone or other device into a FIDO Certified, PKI-backed security key for a frictionless, phishing-resistant login from desktop to cloud. The main benefits include:

1. Separating your IdP from authentication: SSOs are effective services for easing workflows and managing access to a user's suite of applications; however, this places a significant target on its back for attackers seeking access to those user privileges. Separating the authentication providers from SSO providers and using a more secure passwordless authentication solution makes it more difficult for attackers to bypass.  
2. Implementing phishing-resistant passwordless MFA: One of the major Okta security issues is how easily attackers can phish, intercept or bypass MFA security that uses SMS, OTPs or push notification. By removing passwords and phishable factors, and authenticating using biometric identifiers and public key infrastructure (PKI), you eliminate the potential for phishing, MFA bombing and man-in-the-middle attacks.
3. Protecting desktop login or offline users: Okta's more secure authentication methods do not easily extend to desktop login, VPN access or remote situations. With HYPR, you can ensure you have identity security processes in place to cover all use cases and user populations.
4. Deploying continuous identity verification: HYPR utilizes multi-layered, risk-based identity verification that combines a series of factors such as location, behavior, document verification and face recognition so that you can be certain that an identity is genuine.

Okta offers customers multiple forms of authentication for services so that organizations can enforce MFA. The most widely used forms include temporary codes delivered over SMS through Twilio or authenticator apps, though even with these MFA options enabled, attackers can break in fairly easily, gaining wholesale access to connected accounts and applications. Because Okta's security approach is predicated on shared secrets, these authentication methods can be phished or intercepted through a number of different techniques.

The other major risk associated with Okta's native authentication methods is that using an identity provider to log in to the same identity provider creates significant risk for access. Implementing a third-party, phishing-resistant, passwordless MFA solution like HYPR helps mitigate the centralized risk within your Okta environment by removing the authentication burden from the SSO.

Additionally, some of Okta's more secure authentication methods are not compatible with modern workforce arrangements: desktop logins, offline users, VPN access, or remote work scenarios. HYPR provides flexibility to ensure your authentication methods cover all of your use cases.

Two-factor authentication (2FA) still uses a password as one of its factors, which can be breached or stolen. Moreover, the second factor is usually an OTP code or push notification, which can itself be phished or bypassed. Passwordless systems eliminate password management completely and use no shared credentials in the authentication process, so there is nothing to be breached or stolen.

HYPR provides a number of FIDO2-certified passwordless methods to authenticate user identity, including the HYPR Mobile App or passkeys such as biometric authentication, facial recognition scans, hardware authenticators, or physical security keys. You can learn more about different authentication methods and HYPR's Okta integration in our docs.