An organization needs to secure access for their servers by ensuring that users can request access only based on their specific roles or departments. All access requests must go through a formal approval process to validate the appropriate permissions granted. Users should be granted access exclusively to the actions permitted by their assigned roles. Additionally, to enhance security, the organization requires regular password rotation for all server accounts. The system must also record all user sessions and securely store these logs on the gateway for monitoring and auditing purposes. The challenge is to implement a security framework that enforces these controls effectively to maintain strong security and tight control over server access.
Solution
By leveraging Okta, we can implement the above Usecase. For Access request we are going to utilize Okta Access request capability, with this we can control the approval levels and also segregate the request types based on the department or role and for the Servers we can utilize the Okta Advanced Server Access feature for access to AD Joined Servers and also it stores the user activity with the help of Session recording feature. For managing AD server accounts password rotation, we can utilize the Okta Privileged Access feature. By combining all the Okta products, we can build a robust and secure access management solution for your sensitive resources.
Prerequisites
A running instance of On Prem Active Directory.
A running instance of Linux Gateway for session recording.
A domain joined windows server which acts a target resource.
Super admin privileges to access Okta Tenant.
Admin access to Okta Privileged Access, Okta Advanced Server Access & Okta Access Request.
Required access to Okta Workflows Application
Feature – Manage Active Directory Accounts for Okta PA must be enabled. For more details contact to the Okta Support team.
Feature – Delegated workflow for Access Request must be enabled.
Theoretical Demonstration
Please watch the video to understand why we are configuring SSR on AD-joined servers with password rotation using Okta.
Technical Demonstration
Watch a demonstration on effortlessly handling identities in Okta and setting up access requests for AD Joined Servers and accounts, along with password rotation and session recording features to improve efficiency, security, and auditing.
Benefits
Automated access grants and revocations which enables quick and error-free granting and revoking of AD server account access.
Okta PA automatically changes or rotates AD account passwords, keeping them safe and reducing hacking risks.
All access and actions are recorded, making it easy to audit and meet compliance.
Strong authentication and session recording prevent misuse and assists in investigating issues.
Everything is automated, so IT spends less time on manual work and users get access faster.
In today’s environment, securing access to company resources has become increasingly complex as organizations adapt to remote and hybrid work models and face constantly evolving cyber threats. Recognizing these challenges, CrowdStrike and Okta have formed a strategic partnership to deliver a tightly integrated solution that unites identity management with endpoint security. By sharing real-time information about the user’s identity and the health of their device during each login attempt, this integration empowers security teams to make intelligent access decisions that keep threats out while maintaining a smooth experience for legitimate users.
With this approach, businesses can quickly adopt the Zero Trust security framework, ensuring that only trusted users on secure devices are allowed to access sensitive systems and data, no matter where they work or what devices they use.
Use-Case Overview:
Check out the presentation video to have an understanding about the use-case around integrating CrowdStrike with Okta.
Use-Case Demonstration:
Here’s the technical walkthrough on the integration between CrowdStrike & Okta.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, integrating CrowdStrike with Okta empowers organizations to implement zero trust security by leveraging real-time device risk insights alongside intelligent identity access controls. This collaboration enables Okta to make adaptive, security-driven access decisions such as enforcing extra authentication or blocking risky devices ultimately increasing protection, simplifying compliance, and enhancing the user experience across remote and hybrid environments.
In the current digital environment, identity and access management (IAM) is essential for safeguarding an organization’s systems and data. With the growing adoption of cloud-based applications and services, managing access to these resources has become more challenging. Implementing effective identity governance is crucial to ensure that individuals have access to the appropriate resources at the correct time and for legitimate purposes.
The organization has already made significant progress in securing application access by using Okta for Single Sign-On and Adaptive Multi-factor Authentication. These solutions have enhanced security and streamlined user access. Nevertheless, the existing process for requesting access and provisioning remains manual, depending heavily on emails and spreadsheets.
Problem Statement:
The organization’s method for manually requesting and provisioning access is highly inefficient and susceptible to mistakes, resulting in delays for employees, heightened security risks due to inconsistent access controls, and compliance issues that could lead to regulatory violations. The absence of automation and transparency in the access request and provisioning process results in excessive administrative work, escalating costs, and decreased productivity, while also complicating the tracking and auditing of access modifications.
This manual approach places the organization at risk for potential security breaches, insider threats, and damage to its reputation, ultimately obstructing our ability to function effectively, securely, and according to industry regulations and standards.
Use-Case – Presentation:
Use-Case – Demonstration:
Conclusion:
By adopting Okta identity governance, particularly Okta Access Governance, along with Workflows and Lifecycle management, the organization can effectively tackle the issues related to manual access requests and provisioning processes. This approach will allow the organization to automate and simplify access management, enhance security and compliance, and boost operational efficiency. With automated workflows, self-service access requests, and real-time insight into access permissions, we can mitigate the risk of security breaches, enhance user productivity, and ensure adherence to regulations.
Ultimately, this solution will assist the organization in establishing a secure, efficient, and scalable identity governance framework that supports our business objectives and enables the organization to flourish in an increasingly dynamic digital environment.
Okta is a trusted player in Identity & Access Management domain & is renounced for its best-in-class products & services. By leveraging the cloud, Okta allows users to access applications on any device at any time, while still enforcing strong security controls. Okta integrates with your organization’s existing directories, HRMS / Application directories and 3rd party identity systems to establish a central directory structure. Okta got an app catalogue of 8,000+ app integration which facilitates the users to have seamless SSO experience to access the integrated entitled applications from a single dashboard. Okta Workforce Identity cloud is a platform for your employees, contractors, or partners to access your organization’s digital resources.
Okta platform is spread across the Identity Domains and the capabilities around those core pillars.
Access Management primary focus of interest is around granting & revoking privileges to access an application or data or perform any actions on the applications / systems. The main objectives of Access Management are to authenticate the users, authorizing the actions attempted by the users & accounting the activities / actions performed.
Okta is aligned to these guiding principles and ensures the right users have access to the right resources at the right time through a variety of products & services listed below.
Single Sign-On
Adaptive Multi Factor Authentication
Password-less Authentication
Identity Federation
Access Gateway
Security Policies
Behaviors detections
Identity Threat Protection
Identity Governance & Administration:
Identity Governance & Administration focuses on governance, compliance & visibility across identities spread across the organizations. Identity governance is about policies around separation of duties, access requests for role management, access certifications to validate the access privileges, finally analytics & reporting. While Identity Administration is focused on provisioning the users to the requested applications / resources, managing the changes in the user role with appropriate access privileges & deprovisioning the access privileges when access is no longer required. IGA systems are designed to give organizations visibility into access sprawls and provide better controls to identify and limit access creeps to their resources.
Okta manages IGA diligently and the IGA architecture is perfectly balanced by leveraging the following products & services:
Access Governance
Access Requests
Access Certifications
Reporting
Entitlement Management
Lifecycle Management
Okta Workflows
Privileged Access Management:
Privileged Access Management revolves around securing & monitoring access to critical systems initiated by privileged users such as IT administrators, Application Owners, Contractors or 3rd party vendors who manage the infrastructure on your behalf. Users who hold privileged accesses are susceptible to cyber security attacks and if left unnoticed, results in a higher risk impacting the organization overall security posture. Compromising the privileged accounts will let the malicious actors have the key to the organization’s digital assets.
Okta being a cloud Identity Provider & with the tight integrations between these core pillars, Okta Privileged Access facilitates organizations to reduce risk by leveraging the IGA & Access Management services for privileged resources irrespective of the resource origins, cloud or on-premises servers. This will deliver better visibility, security, and compliance, without compromising on the user’s experience. Okta Privileged Access key capabilities are as follows:
JIT access to the infrastructure
Session recording & Auditing
Secrets Vaulting
Privileged Access Governance
Service Account management for Applications.
Demonstration of Core Capabilities:
Here’s the video comprising the core capabilities & working flow showcasing few real-time scenarios.
In today’s digital landscape, Organizations often use multiple business applications like Salesforce, Office 365, including HRMS tools like Zoho People Plus and Zoho Recruit, CRM platforms to manage their operations. Employees are required to log in separately to each application, resulting in inefficiencies, wasted time, and a fragmented user experience.
To address the challenges of managing multiple applications within the Zoho portfolio, such as Zoho People Plus, Zoho CRM, and Zoho Recruit, we use a simple and effective solution by integrating Zoho Directory with Okta through SAML 2.0.
Usecase Overview:
Check out the presentation video to have an understanding about the use case around integrating Zoho with Okta.
Usecase Demonstration:
Here’s the technical walkthrough on the integration and provisioning between Zoho & Okta.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, integrating Okta with Zoho portfolio has significantly streamlined the users access to the platform. With Okta’s Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities, users can now seamlessly log in to multiple Zoho applications without remembering multiple passwords, reducing login times and increasing productivity. The integration backed up with Okta’s Sign-On policies, enhances organization security posture by providing an additional layer of authentication, ensuring that only authorized personnel can access sensitive customer data. By streamlining Zoho access with Okta, we have improved user experience, increased efficiency and strengthened security.
IT infrastructure and operations are critical assets for businesses to function smoothly. Disaster recovery management involves planning and implementing strategies to ensure that an organization can quickly recover from disruptive events, such as natural disasters, cyberattacks or equipment failures. IT disaster recovery management is a way to save the business from negative consequences of these risks.
Such scenarios can present a direct threat to business continuity and survival. The impact can be in the form of financial losses, operation disruptions, reputation loss, or even legal consequences.
Disaster recovery is the process by which an organization attempts to prevent or minimize the loss of business and data in the event of a disaster. It is about how an organization bounces back and regains normalcy after the catastrophic impact of such events.
Disasters can have significant impacts on software systems, affecting both the functionality and security of applications.
Some key impacts:
Data Loss: Disasters can lead to the loss of critical data, especially if proper backup systems are not in place.
Downtime: Software systems may experience prolonged downtime, disrupting business operations and leading to financial losses.
Security Breaches: Disasters can expose vulnerabilities, making systems more susceptible to cyberattacks and data breaches.
Corrupted Data: Data corruption can occur during disasters, leading to inaccurate or unusable information.
Service Disruptions: Essential services and applications may become unavailable, affecting users and customers.
For example, in 2024, OpenAI experienced a major outage due to a misconfiguration in their Kubernetes system, which disrupted key services like ChatGPT and Sora for several hours. This incident highlighted the importance of proper configuration management and disaster recovery planning.
SailPoint Disaster recovery plan for business continuity. It refers to the processes and procedures to ensure the uninterrupted functioning of the business’s during and after a disruptive event.
The simple flow illustrates the DC-DR strategy.
Data Center-Disaster Recovery (DC-DR) architecture has several advantages.
Advantages:
Business Continuity: Ensures that critical business operations can continue during and after a disaster, minimizing downtime.
Data Protection: Provides robust data backup and recovery solutions, safeguarding against data loss.
Compliance: Helps meet regulatory requirements for data protection and disaster recovery.
Scalability: Can be scaled to accommodate growing business needs and data volumes.
The Key points of Disaster recovery is Data Replication and Load balancing.
Database Replication:
Steps – How database replication works:
Step 1: Identify the Primary Database (Source): A primary (or master) database is chosen as the main source of truth where data changes originate.
Step 2: Set Up Replica Databases (Targets): One or more replicas (or secondary databases) are configured to receive data from the primary database.
Step 3: Data Changes Captured: Any updates, inserts, or deletes in the primary database are recorded, typically through a transaction log or change data capture mechanism.
Step 4: Transmit Changes to Replicas: The captured changes are sent to replica databases over the network in real-time or at scheduled intervals.
Step 5: Apply Changes on Replicas: The replicas apply these updates to keep their data in sync with the primary database.
Load Balancing:
In an active-standby (or active-passive) load balancer setup, the primary load balancer (active) handles all the traffic under normal conditions, while the secondary load balancer (standby) remains on standby, ready to take over if the primary load balancer fails.
Steps – How Load balancers works.
Primary Load Balancer (Active):
Actively manages and distributes incoming traffic to the servers in the primary data center (DC).
Continuously monitors the health and performance of the servers and the network.
Secondary Load Balancer (Standby):
Remains on standby, not handling any traffic under normal conditions.
Regularly synchronizes with the primary load balancer to stay updated with the current state and configurations.
Failover Process:
If the primary load balancer detects a failure or significant issue, it triggers the failover process.
The secondary load balancer becomes active and starts handling the traffic, ensuring minimal disruption to services.
Failback Process:
Once the primary load balancer is restored and verified to be fully operational, traffic can be redirected back.
The secondary load balancer returns to standby mode, ready for any future failover events.
This setup ensures high availability and reliability by providing a backup load balancer that can quickly take over in case of a failure.
The following demo video is a deep dive demonstration of SailPoint Disaster recovery planand failover configurations using our ENH environment.
Sticky Sessions: Configure the load balancer for sticky sessions (also known as session persistence) to ensure that user sessions are consistently routed to the same application server.
We recommend active-standby (or active-passive) load balancer setup.
Database:
Configure your database for replication to ensure high availability and disaster recovery. Use native database replication features like MySQL replication or Oracle Data Guard.
Data base must be one phase commit.
While replicating make sure only identityiq, identityiqah, identityiqPlugin are replicated.
As Organizations continue to adopt cloud-based identity and access management solutions like Okta, securing administrative access to these platforms has become a top priority. Okta administrators possess elevated privilege allowing them to manage user identities, configure security policies, and access sensitive data. However, this also makes them a prime target for attackers seeking to exploit these privileges.
To mitigate this risk, it is essential to implement a robust password management solution that can securely store, manage, and rotate administrative credentials. Okta manages password in cloud and the organization desires to manage passwords on-premises using CyberArk Password Vault.
To address the integration challenge, we will implement a comprehensive solution that integrates Okta with CyberArk PVWA using SAML 2.0. This integration will enable secure and automated management of Okta admin account passwords, reducing the risk of password-related security incidents and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. As part of this solution, two admin accounts will be created in Okta: one non-privileged account to access Okta user dashboard, and a second one Privileged account which will be linked to CyberArk PVWA. The Privileged account will receive a password generated by CyberArk, which will be used for authentication. Using SAML 2.0, the admin will log in to Okta using the privileged account credentials, with the password provided by CyberArk. This will ensure secure and compliant access management and password management processes, streamlining administrative tasks and reducing the risk of security breaches.
Pre-requisites:
Okta tenant, CyberArk PVWA tenant and Active Directory with a Domain.
Active Directory must be integrated with CyberArk and Okta.
Use case Overview:
Please refer to the below video to have an understanding about Okta & the use case around integrating CyberArk Password Vault with Okta.
Technical Demonstration:
Here’s the technical walkthrough on the integration between CyberArk Password Vault & Okta.
Conclusion:
The integration of Okta with CyberArk PVWA provides a comprehensive solution for managing Okta administrator passwords, enhancing security, and improving compliance. By automating password rotation, expiration, and compliance, organizations can reduce administrative burdens and minimize the risk of password-related security incidents. With real-time visibility and control over password management, organizations can respond swiftly on security incidents and ensure the integrity of their identity and access management systems. Overall, this integration provides a robust and scalable solution for securing Okta administrator passwords and protecting sensitive resources and applications.
In today’s digital landscape, many organizations face significant challenges in securely managing access to their sensitive data. These unchecked identity challenges often result in vulnerabilities, data breaches, and difficulties in ensuring that only the right individuals have the appropriate access. This solution offers a robust answer to these issues by simplifying and strengthening access control with a governance view. By integrating Okta with product like SailPoint IdentityIQ (IIQ), organizations can strengthen their identity governance and automate the provisioning and de-provisioning processes. This integration ensures that users are granted access solely to the resources they need, thereby minimizing security risks and ensuring compliance.
To get started, organizations need to configure SSO and Okta connectors within Sailpoint IIQ, which link their systems and data sources to enable seamless and secure access management across the enterprise.
Required to have admin-level access to both SailPoint and Okta environments.
Usecase Overview
Please watch the video to understand why we are integrating SailPoint IIQ with Okta and the specific use case for this integration.
Technical Demonstration
In this video, we’ll show you how to integrate SailPoint IIQ with Okta. We’ll cover setting up SSO, configuring the Okta Connector, and mapping Okta attributes to SailPoint. We’ll also demonstrate how admins manage access reviews and how users can access SailPoint IIQ from Okta.
Conclusion
On a closure note, with all the steps carried out in this use case, it is fair enough to say that we have successfully integrated SailPoint IIQ with Okta, which enhances access management by governing the right identities have access to the right resources. Along with that achieving identity lifecycle management by ensuring synchronized access and governance policies are harmonized between the products. This integration reduces manual processes, increases compliance, and streamlines access control across the organization. Regular monitoring and fine-tuning of policies ensure the integration remains effective as the organizational needs evolve.
In today’s enterprise environment, providing a seamless and branded login experience is essential for user engagement, security, and brand identity. Companies using Okta for identity management often seek to customize their login portals to cater to different user such as employees, contractors, and partners. A custom login page not only enhances the user experience but also reinforces the company’s branding and can improve security by providing distinct, role-specific access points.
This blog describes how to set up personalized login URLs and pages for employees and contractors/partners, enabling each user to enjoy a customized login experience while utilizing Okta’s identity management features.
Problem Statement
Organizations typically have a diverse set of users, including employees, contractors, and business partners. These users may need to access different resources, apps, and tools, but they may also have different access control policies and security requirements. The need for custom login experiences arises from the following challenges:
Brand Consistency: The login experience should reflect the company’s branding and visual identity.
Role-based Customization: Different users (employees, contractors, partners) may have different access levels and login requirements.
User Segmentation: Having a single login page can be confusing for users from different groups who may have different authentication mechanisms or access privileges.
Security and Compliance: Separate login pages can help implement role-based security policies more effectively.
Solution
To address the problem, we propose the following solution using Okta’s customization features:
Custom Logon URLs and Pages for Different Users
Employee Login Page: A custom URL like https://employeelogin.company.com will serve employees, presenting the company’s branding and specific employee-related apps.
Okta Customization: Okta provides options to customize the login page through its “Okta Sign-In Widget” and “Custom Sign-In Pages.” These tools allow for integrating branding elements (e.g., logos, colors), different authentication methods (e.g., MFA), and a dynamic user flow tailored to each user group.
Usecase Overview:
Check out the presentation below to explore how to configure a Custom Domain in Okta, including the benefits of custom branding and DNS configurations for a seamless user experience.
Technical Demonstration:
Check out the demo below to see how to configure a Custom Domain in Okta, customize the sign-in page, and apply DNS configurations for a fully branded and secure Okta experience.
Conclusion
Customizing the Okta login experience for different users like employees, contractors, and partners helps enhance security, improve user experience, and maintain consistent branding. By using Okta’s flexibility in customizing login URLs and pages, along with role-based access control, organizations can ensure that each group has the appropriate level of access while maintaining a branded, user-friendly login process.
Managing and securing privileged access across diverse IT environments is complex and prone to vulnerabilities. Without a centralized approach, inconsistencies in policy enforcement can lead to security breaches and compliance issues.
Using CyberArk’s PAM Master Policy helps standardize and enforce security and compliance policies consistently across all platforms, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and enhancing overall security.
CyberArk’s PAM Master Policy offers a simple and intuitive way to manage an organization’s security policy.
The Master Policy enables us to configure the security and compliance policy of privileged accounts in an organization from a single pane of glass. It allows us to configure compliance-driven rules, which will be defined as the baseline for the organization.
Master Policy: Rules
The Master policy is divided into four higher-level and compliance-driven policy sections, such as:
Each of the above sections has a set of rules and offers better visibility and control over policy configurations and enforcement.
Image: Rules of the Master Policy
Master Policy: Exceptions
Master policy settings, when configured, can be applied to most privileged accounts in the organization. However, a few privileged accounts may need to deviate from these global settings for various reasons. We can create exceptions for the accounts that need to deviate from the configured global settings.
Master Policy: Presentation
The following video will explain CyberArk PAM’s Master Policy and it’s rules in detail. Below are the topics covered as part of this video:
In conclusion, managing privileged access across diverse IT environments is complex and prone to vulnerabilities. The CyberArk’s PAM Master Policy standardizes and enforces security and compliance policies, reducing the risk of unauthorized access.
ENH iSecure plays a crucial role in this ecosystem by providing comprehensive support and expertise in implementing and managing CyberArk’s PAM Master Policy. With ENH iSecure, organizations can ensure that their privileged access management is not only effective but also aligned with industry best practices and compliance requirements.
