“We are what we repeatedly do“ is a common paraphrase of Aristotle—though if he were around today, his sentiment might be more like “we are what we search, click, or connect to.” As security professionals well know, there’s a lot to learn from how we use technology. The interactions between users, applications, networks, devices, and APIs all…

To put it bluntly, 2018 was a bad year for data security. Major consumer-facing corporations like Marriott and Facebook experienced some of the largest data breaches in history, exposing the data of millions of consumers. In total, 2018 saw an overall increase in compromised company records of 133% YoY, with an average of 291 records stolen every…

At Okta, we see our customers deploy and build a broad range of customer-facing apps. Commonly, these apps support differing audiences, often reflected as segments within a single company, identities across customer companies, or users that span into partner organizations. Which begs the question: how to centrally manage these diverse users while…

A lot can change in ten years. When Todd and I decided to start a company together in 2009, we were two entrepreneurs with a check from Ben Horowitz (we were a16z’s first cloud investment), some borrowed desks in Jawbone’s office, and a name — SaaSure — that we quickly replaced. After 10 years of blood, sweat and a few tears, Okta has evolved into…

At Okta, we see our customers deploy and build a broad range of customer-facing applications. At times, the completeness of a user profile may vary, depending on what is initially known about the user and any additional information that accrued over time. Progressive profiling is used to incrementally collect profile data over time, as a…

FIDO is an acronym that comes from the Latin fido, meaning ‘to trust’, which was popularised by Abraham Lincoln—who borrowed it to name his dog. It’s a fitting name for man’s best friend, and just as appropriate in the security world, where trust is key. A more technical reference, FIDO (Fast IDentity Online), emerged in 2012 and is backed by a…

Most of the pivotal developments in human history have facilitated better connection. From written language to the Gutenberg printing press, whenever we improve our communication, society as a whole leaps forward. In the digital era, the internet revolutionized our lives by enabling instant global communication. This paved the way for what could…

Too busy to watch the Zero Trust in Practice webinar? Don’t worry—we’ve got you covered. There’s a lot of hype around Zero Trust security, but it’s proving to be more than just theory. Trust used to be a binary decision determined by the network, but as organizations move to mobile and cloud based services, the perimeter as we knew it has…

Beginning on May 25, 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became officially enforceable. This new regulation is now top of mind for any organization storing and processing EU citizen data. Consumer-facing apps and sites are of particular sensitivity. The challenge is that while the GDPR provides guidelines for compliance, it is not…

IT’s time and resources are generally taken up by three main business activities: building or operating line of business applications, maintaining IT infrastructure, and integrating new systems. These responsibilities are so crucial to an organization’s commercial and operational livelihood that IT employees simply can’t afford to lose time and…