One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions 6.9.5 - Okta Multi-Factor Authentication - Overview

One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions:

One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions (SPS) controls privileged access to remote IT systems, records activities in searchable, movie-like audit trails, and prevents malicious actions. SPS is a quickly deployable enterprise device, completely independent from clients and servers — integrating seamlessly into existing networks. It captures the activity data necessary for user profiling and enables full user session drill down for forensic investigations.

SPS acts as a central authentication gateway, enforcing strong authentication before users access sensitive IT assets. SPS can integrate with remote user directories to resolve the group memberships of users who access nonpublic information. Credentials for accessing information systems can be retrieved transparently from SPS's local Credential Store or a third-party password management system. This method protects the confidentiality of passwords as users can never access them. When used together with Okta (or another Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) provider), SPS directs all connections to the authentication tool, and upon successful authentication, it permits the user to access the information system.

Okta Adaptive Multi-factor Authentication:

Okta is a cloud-based identity service offering identity, authentication, and access control functions as a service. To support multi-factor authentication, SPS integrates with the Okta identity management service. This enables you to leverage an additional out-of-band factor (typically through the user’s registered smartphone) when authenticating the user. The additional factor is processed in-line with the connection, so users do not have to switch to an external application to process the additional factor. This results in a seamless and efficient user experience that is readily accepted by the users.

The One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions can interact with your Okta account and can automatically request strong multi-factor authentication for your privileged users who are accessing the servers and services protected by SPS. Okta supports a broad range of authentication methods, including software, hardware, and cellphone-based solutions.

Solution benefits

Matt Magleby, Sr. Computer Scientist at Adobe

One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions helps us meet a portion of our compliance and internal security requirements related to access management.

Using SPS together with Okta provides the following benefits:

• Easy-to-use multi-factor authentication secures privileged access to business-critical servers. The enforcement of a second-factor authentication and the availability of session recordings make access of high-risk users more secure.

• Outband authentication to protect against privileged identity theft.

• Logs and audits administrative network traffic.

• Integrates with existing LDAP user directory.

• Easy and fast deployment and implementation: a network-level solution that does not require installing agents on clients or servers.

• Can forward user logs into Splunk for long-term storage and analysis.

• Supports SSH and RDP protocols to access both Linux and Windows servers, without disrupting the daily workflow of your system administrators and other privileged users.

• Supports strong authentication methods, including SSH keys and certificates.

Meet compliance requirements

ISO 27001, ISO 27018, SOC 2, and other regulations and industry standards include authentication-related requirements, (for example, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for accessing production systems, and the logging of all administrative sessions). In addition to other requirements, using SPS and Okta helps you comply with the following requirements:

• PCI DSS 8.3: Secure all individual non-console administrative access and all remote access to the cardholder data environment (CDE) using MFA.

• PART 500.12 Multi-Factor Authentication: Covered entities are required to apply MFA for:

  • Each individual accessing the covered entity’s internal systems.

  • Authorized access to database servers that allow access to nonpublic information.

  • Third parties accessing nonpublic information.

• NIST 800-53 IA-2, Identification and Authentication, network access to privileged accounts: The information system implements MFA for network access to privileged accounts.