YubiKey to Secure Okta Adaptive MFA

There is a trend developing in identity management focused intently on security that incorporates strong two-factor authentication.

Today, we provide more proof of that trend by announcing our partnership with Okta to integrate YubiKeys into their cloud identity ecosystem. Okta has achieved the status of being the only solution among its peers to occupy the leaders’ quadrant in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS). Inclusion into Okta’s platform reaffirms the reputation of the YubiKey as a highly sought after authentication technology by many leading software providers and services.

YubiKeys will soon be an option for stronger authentication as part of Okta’s just-released Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). With this service, users will be able to securely and easily authenticate with the YubiKey to Okta’s platform, which lets users authenticate once and access any number of applications.

The YubiKey is a hardware device that plugs into a USB port and works with a simple touch to trigger a one-time passcode (OTP) that securely authenticates the user. This single touch to activate a second factor makes YubiKey the preferred choice for users logging in from any device with a USB port.

YubiKeys supporting the upcoming Okta integration include the YubiKey Standard and Nano, YubiKey Edge and Edge-n, and the YubiKey NEO and NEO-n.

In addition, Okta also announced it has joined the FIDO Alliance, which develops open protocols for strong authentication, including the Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) specification. Both OTP and FIDO U2F features are natively supported in a single YubiKey.

Being the co-creators of the FIDO U2F protocol, we are excited that Okta has joined the Alliance. The FIDO protocol uses public key cryptography and is engineered specifically to address phishing and man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attacks.

The YubiKey Edge and YubiKey NEO support FIDO Alliance’s U2F protocol mode together with OTP. In addition, YubiKey NEO and YubiKey NEO-n have other capabilities such as a PIV-compliant CCID smart card and OpenPGP (SSH login, code signing, and more).