Okta, Inc. announced support for passkeys in early access as a passwordless authentication method for Okta Customer Identity Cloud, powered by Auth0. With the flip of a switch, developers and digital teams can quickly add sophisticated passkey support to their apps, and increase adoption of phishing-resistant, passwordless authentication. Passkeys are one of several new capabilities that expand Okta's comprehensive solution for Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM), delivering convenience, security, and privacy for consumer and SaaS applications.

The ability to authenticate customers online seamlessly and securely is now a business imperative, not just a technical concern. According to Accenture's 2023 Tech Vision survey, 85% of global executives view digital Identity as critical, with three in four noting that authentication issues have negatively impacted their bottom line due to abandoned transactions, customer frustration, and fraud. While passwords remain the most common authentication method, passkeys offer a more convenient and secure alternative. Based on FIDO Alliance and W3C open standards, passkeys provide faster, easier, and more secure sign-ins to apps and websites, across a user's devices.

"In the age of AI where we are seeing threats escalate, passwords and legacy forms of 2FA are as inconvenient as they are defenseless. By switching to phishing-resistant passkeys, organizations can protect both their customers and their bottom line," said Andrew Shikiar, executive director and CMO of FIDO Alliance. "Identity platforms like Okta will play a major role in driving widespread adoption as they provide a streamlined solution that developers and product teams can leverage to quickly upgrade consumers' security and user experience; we applaud Okta's support for passkeys in its Customer Identity Cloud and encourage its customers to take advantage of this important capability."

Supported by major tech platforms, passkeys are both phishing-resistant and easy to use. But adoption relies on making it easy for developers and digital teams to integrate passkeys into their consumer apps and websites. By supporting passkeys with a simple, no-code configuration in Customer Identity Cloud, Okta empowers any organization to embrace a passwordless future today.

"For the broader end-user population to fully embrace passkeys, they must truly become a ubiquitous feature. Achieving this ubiquity hinges on ensuring that it's seamless for all developers to incorporate passkeys into their applications," said Vittorio Bertocci, Principal Architect at Okta. "We're doing our part to achieve widespread adoption by making it easy for developers to add sophisticated passkey support whether they're updating an existing app, or building something new."

No Trade-Offs Between Security, Privacy, and User Experience

Okta today announced several enhancements to its CIAM offering, Customer Identity Cloud. SlashData's Developer Nation Q1 2023 survey revealed that Auth0 by Okta, the technology that powers Customer Identity Cloud, is the most used authentication provider among developers.

"Passkeys are powerful, but they're also just the tip of the spear. Okta Customer Identity Cloud supports a variety of use cases across consumer and SaaS applications, wherever organizations need both better security and user experience," said Shiven Ramji, President of Customer Identity Cloud at Okta. "Paired with our powerful extensibility, Okta gives application builders the most complete set of authentication, authorization, lifecycle and user management, and Identity security tools, so they can focus more on innovation, and less on Identity."

New CIAM capabilities include:

• Support for passkeyssimplifies implementation of passkeys to reduce login friction, while protecting organizations from credential-based threats. Okta's support for passkeys covers critical user flows such as sign-up, sign-in, and account recovery, with seamless passkey management for admins.
• Workflows No-Code Automation for Customer Identityenables developers and digital teams to improve security posture, and drive stronger customer experience and retention by personalizing Customer Identity flows without writing code.
• Phone number as sole identifiermakes it easier to support more users, in more countries where phone is an expected form of authentication, such as in Asia-Pacific or Latin America. An available passwordless option allows users to sign-up with just their phone number.
• Password recovery enhancementsallow developers to enhance security and lessen support burdens by integrating multi-factor authentication (MFA) into their password reset flow, or give customers the ability to reset using any enrolled factor.
• Custom sign-up promptsenable developers to create personalized registration journeys directly within the new Universal Login. Sign-up prompts can be tailored to customer preferences, localization needs, privacy, consent, and beyond.

Availability

Support for passkeys is available today in early access, and will be generally available in Q4 2023. Okta Workflows is generally available for joint customers of Okta Workforce Identity Cloud and Okta Customer Identity Cloud. Password recovery options, and custom sign-up prompts will be available in early access later this month and generally available in early 2024. Phone number as a sole identifier will be available in early access in November and generally available in early 2024.