Okta Identity Governance delivers a comprehensive IGA solution to all three levels of government
Okta recently reached significant compliance milestones with Okta Identity Governance, now customer-ready¹ for Okta for Government High and Okta for Government Moderate, marking a new era for federal cybersecurity. The federal government’s interest in modern Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) tools is a strategic and security imperative, not just an operational convenience.
With a substantial portion of cyberthreats originating from within an organization, modern governance is crucial for mitigating threats and improving efficiency. A unified platform can help federal leaders move beyond fragmented, manual processes and build a foundation for a Zero Trust architecture.
Mandate for change: Beyond the "compliance box"
The federal government faces a sophisticated cyber threat landscape. In its latest report on the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified "improper usage" by an authorized user as the second most prevalent incident type among civilian agencies, revealing a critical internal risk.
Legacy IGA focuses narrowly on compliance, addressing security gaps only during periodic audits. A modern approach, however, views governance as a foundational pillar of a security-first strategy, designed to proactively help minimize risks before they lead to an incident. This shift from a reactive to a proactive security posture is a core driver for federal IT modernization.
Okta Identity Governance delivers a comprehensive approach to federal IGA
Our approach aligns with the General Services Administration’s Identity Lifecycle Management Playbook, which defines IGA as a centralized source for managing entitlements and account provisioning for people and non-person entities (NPEs).
The full scope of Okta’s modern identity governance directly supports general federal initiatives, including:
- Automate joiner, mover, leaver journeys: Automating the employee lifecycle with workflows and deep integrations to HRIS and ITSM systems reduces administrative burden and security risk.
- Flexible, self-service access at scale: Time-bound, chat-integrated access simplifies the user experience and provides an auditable trail for all access decisions.
- Streamlined, context-aware certifications: Access certifications are a key defense against privilege creep, enabling scheduled or event-driven review campaigns to ensure user access aligns with job roles and provide a verifiable record for auditors.
- Enforce policy; prevent risky access: Enforce granular security policies, including attribute- and role-based controls that evaluate user attributes in real-time, and Separation of Duties to prevent fraud and errors.
- Reveal risk and inform decisions with intelligence: A tool like the MFA Enrollment by User Report can demonstrate to federal CISOs that they have met goals for an "Optimal" Zero Trust state through strong authentication to align with key mandates like OMB M-22-09.
- Extend governance to bots and non-employees: Zero Trust must apply to all identities. Provide visibility into and automate the governance of NPEs like bots and service accounts, addressing a key security gap.
The path to governance success for federal agencies
Adopting modern IGA is not without its challenges for federal agencies, particularly the need to integrate with legacy systems. However, the strategic benefits of a unified, cloud-native platform far outweigh this hurdle.
Accountability: Modern IGA provides a complete audit trail for every access decision, fulfilling the rigorous reporting requirements of oversight bodies like the GAO. This shifts agencies from a reactive "audit-preparation" model to a proactive state of continuous readiness.
Improved efficiency and lower cost: Automating manual workflows leads to significant cost savings. The Forrester Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study found that Okta Identity Governance can deliver $1.1 million in improved identity governance efficiency savings over three years, and an additional $232,000 in avoided audit preparation and compliance reporting costs over the same period.
Accelerated time to value: A comprehensive, cloud-native IGA solution can be deployed significantly faster than traditional legacy systems, with customers achieving payback in less than six months and a return on investment of 211% over three years.
Ultimately, modern IGA is an essential tool for building a more secure and efficient government.
If you’re ready to learn more about how Okta's IGA solution can help your agency unify access management and identity governance to unlock security use cases and cost savings, download our guide on Automating Identity Lifecycle Management for increased security.
Existing customers interested in getting hands-on with Okta Identity Governance can contact their Okta account team or federalhelp@okta.com.
¹ Customer-ready indicates all planned pre-audit work is complete and the third-party auditor will begin the testing and evaluation process. Customers must agree to be deployed in a pre-authorized environment and changes may occur due to audit findings. Further, even following the audit, this product or feature may not achieve FedRAMP and/or DoD IL4 authorization status and may only be available to eligible customers. To learn more about the respective product milestones, please reference the Okta US Public Sector resource page.
