Empower Identity-Driven Security by Automating Incident Response

Maggie Adams May 16, 2018

Security attacks can happen in an instant. Nearly a third of people who receive a phishing email open it, according to Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report; and on average, these unsuspecting users click on its malicious link or attachment within a couple of minutes of receiving it. Just like that, in less than five minutes, your network, apps, data, and users can go from safe to compromised.

To stop a breach in progress before intruders get a chance to wreak havoc, security response needs to move more quickly than humans can react. Since four out of five successful breaches—as in the phishing example above—involve stolen or compromised credentials, identity management is now critical for an effective security strategy. Identity-driven security can advance your security posture by providing robust prevention and detection tools as well as enabling real-time response.

The instantaneous incident response required by today’s threat landscape is only possible in a security environment built to support it, this includes:

  • Prevention: secure your credentials by implementing strong authentication and centralized identity.
  • Detection: offer powerful visibility into user activity across environments, to spot suspicious behavior and trigger alerts.
  • Response: provide instantaneous and policy-driven actions to appropriately and effectively resolve the situation.

Okta elevates your security posture across all three areas. It provides strong authorization and centralized identity with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Single-Sign-On (SSO), to facilitate a zero trust framework. Okta also provides valuable data on suspicious activity, like excessive failed log-ins or denied MFA push notifications, via our Syslog API. Through tight integrations across leadings SIEMs or CASBs, Okta provides rich identity context to help detect as well as accelerate, or even automate, your response through step-up authentication, suspension of a user account, or another action.

This real-time response can happen in a couple of ways. It can be an automated response (where possible and appropriate), with the security tool and Okta communicating directly to generate quick corrective action. Alternatively, an alert can be routed to a security analyst to make an informed enforcement decision. Pre-built integrations with analytics engines like Splunk, workflow orchestration tools like ServiceNow, security platforms like Palo Alto Networks, CASBs like Skyhigh Networks, and thousands of other security partners allow Okta to give your security analysts the intel and tools they need to keep your enterprise safe.

Okta’s identity-driven security, fueled by the industry’s broadest and deepest integration network, offers a powerful, complete solution to effectively address security threats. With attacks happening quickly and more frequently, it’s impossible to manually safeguard your environment alone. Only a sophisticated identity solution like Okta, integrated across your security infrastructure, provides the robust prevention, reliable detection, and automated response you need to keep your enterprise safe.

For more, read our whitepaper about automating incident security response, or read our post about how to evaluate your security team’s readiness for cloud-based incident response.