Okta Signs Partnership With VMware, CrowdStrike, And Tanium

By Amit Chowdhry • Apr 3, 2020
  • Okta, a leading independent provider of identity for the enterprise, announced that it signed partnerships with VMware, CrowdStrike, and Tanium

Okta — a leading independent provider of identity for the enterprise — announced at Oktane20 Live that it signed new strategic partnerships with leading endpoint protection and management providers VMware Carbon Black, CrowdStrike, and Tanium. These new integration partnerships provide a broad set of device risk signals to the Okta Identity Cloud and enable enterprises to combine endpoint risk detection with user identity to deliver powerful access security.

The integrations — which are driving enhanced risk analysis and access decisions in a Zero Trust environment — are made possible through the new Okta Verify application and the Okta Devices Platform Service.

The new partnerships with VMware Carbon Black, CrowdStrike, and Tanium augment Okta’s existing endpoint management integrations for providing enterprise security teams more device context than ever before when creating access and authentication policies. And the new Okta Verify application is built for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Android, and Windows for embedding Okta on every device. Plus this enables Okta to collect risk signals from devices themselves as well as endpoint protection and management partners.

This is made possible through the recently introduced Okta Devices Platform Service — which enables standardized integration capabilities. And Okta’s agnostic approach to endpoint protection and management integration will be used to expand the roster of supported endpoint protection and management vendors.

The Okta Identity Cloud is able to ingest those device risk signals to create a comprehensive risk profile of an individual login attempt. And Okta can now make access decisions based on security posture signals from an individual’s device using data delivered by both Okta Verify and leading endpoint management and endpoint detection and response partners.

With its partners, Okta is able to determine if the operating system is up-to-date and whether or not the device is jailbroken. Plus the companies can determine if the device contains any malware, if the device is managed by IT, and whether or not a firewall is disabled. From there, Okta can then utilize the signals to make the appropriate contextual response to an access request, such as denying access or prompting for an additional factor.

With more than 6,500 pre-built integrations to applications and infrastructure providers, Okta’s customers can quickly and securely use the best technologies for its business. And nearly 8,000 organizations — including Engie, JetBlue, Nordstrom, Takeda Pharmaceutical, Teach for America, T-Mobile, and Twilio — utilize Okta to help protect the identities of their workforces and customers.

Key Quotes:

“It’s clear that securing the modern enterprise involves thinking beyond the perimeter and recognizing the ways people work today. Okta wants to enable anyone to use any technology, and to do so securely. Our new partnerships with endpoint security leaders like VMware Carbon Black, CrowdStrike, and Tanium open the door to really innovative ways to deliver on the promise of Zero Trust security. By feeding device risk signals into the Okta Identity Cloud, we’re able to drive truly comprehensive risk analysis that combines deep device insights with Okta’s user-centric insights, ultimately delivering more secure outcomes for our customers.”

Okta CEO & co-founder Todd McKinnon

“Mobile and cloud technologies have driven new workforce behaviors that have eliminated the traditional perimeter and require a new approach to security. To that end, we believe it’s critical to secure endpoints, workloads, clouds, and user identities. This partnership enhancement with Okta builds on the already strong integration with VMware Workspace ONE for endpoint management. By adding VMware Carbon Black for endpoint security to the partnership, we’re in a position to not only help protect and manage devices, but understand and better secure user identities behind today’s diverse endpoint ecosystem. VMware and Okta are further working to empower security and IT teams in a rapidly-changing attack landscape.”

-Sanjay Poonen, Chief Operating Officer at VMware

“The paradigm shift to cloud services combined with an increasingly remote workforce means the IT network, as we once knew it, no longer exists. To truly remain secure, organizations not only need to verify a user’s identity but also ensure the health and security of the connecting device before granting access to sensitive information. Tanium and Okta are combining industry-leading identity and access management with unified endpoint management and security to give enterprises the ability to define which devices can access critical data, services, and applications, with instant endpoint visibility.”

Peter Constantine, Chief Product Officer at Tanium