Okta, Inc. (formerly Saasure Inc.) is an American identity and access management company based in San Francisco. It provides cloud software that helps companies manage and secure user authentication into applications, and for developers to build identity controls into applications, website web services and devices. It was founded in 2009 and had its

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

in 2017, being valued at over $6 billion.

Products and services

Okta sells 10 products, including Single Sign-On, Universal Directory, Advanced Server Access (formerly ScaleFT), API Access Management, Authentication, User Management, B2B Integration, Multi-factor Authentication, Lifecycle Management, and Access Gateway. Okta sells six services, including a single sign-on service that allows users to log into a variety of systems using one centralized process. For example, the company claims the ability to log into Gmail, Workday, Salesforce and Slack with one login. It also offers

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

authentication services. Okta's services are built on top of the Amazon Web Services cloud. Okta primarily targets enterprise businesses. Claimed customers as of 2020 include Zoominfo, JetBlue,

Nordstrom Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original Wallin & Nordstrom store operated exclusively as a shoe store, and ...

MGM Resorts International MGM Resorts International is an American global hospitality and entertainment company operating destination resorts in Las Vegas, Massachusetts, Detroit, Mississippi, Maryland, and New Jersey, including Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, and Pa ...

, and the

U.S. Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

. Okta runs an annual “Oktane” user conference, which in 2018 featured former

US President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

as a keynote speaker.

Operations

Okta is headquartered in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. It also has offices in San Jose, Bellevue,

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, Washington D.C.,

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, and

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

History

Okta was co-founded in 2009 by Todd McKinnon and Frederic Kerrest, who previously worked together at Salesforce. In 2015, the company raised US$75 million in venture capital from Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, and

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. , Sequoia's total a ...

, at a total initial valuation of US$1.2 billion. In 2017, Okta's initial public offering priced at $17.00 per share, trading up on its first day, to raise an additional US$187 million. At the time of its IPO,

was the biggest shareholder, with a 21.2 percent stake. In January 2019, Okta's CEO announced that the company has over 100 million registered users. In August 2020, Okta announced that it plans to let most of its employees work remotely on a permanent basis as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2021, Okta signed a definitive agreement to acquire Auth0 for $6.5 billion. The deal closed in May 2021.

Security incidents

On March 9, 2021, hacking collective "Advanced Persistent Threat 69420" breached an Okta office network through a security failure in the company's

Verkada Verkada Inc. is a San Mateo, CA-based company that develops cloud-based building security systems. The company combines security equipment such as video cameras, access control systems and environmental sensors, with cloud based machine vision and ...

camera setup. They were able to download security footage from the cameras. One member of the group,

Tillie Kottmann maia arson crimew (formerly known as Tillie Kottmann, and also known as deletescape and antiproprietary; born August 7, 1999) is a Swiss developer and computer hacker. crimew worked in information technology as a teenager, becoming the foun ...

, also revealed that the group had gained root shell access to the network. In a blog post the next day, Okta Chief Security Officer David Bradbury minimized the root shell as an "internal support tool" of the camera manufacturer Verkada. However, the shell would have given the hackers full access to run any commands on the network, and Cloudflare admitted that an identical hack by the group on that company's network had given them that level of access. Bradbury also said that the threat was contained to an isolated network. On March 22, 2022, the hacking group LAPSUS$ posted screenshots claiming to be from Okta internal systems. The next day, Okta concluded that a maximum of 366 of their customers data may potentially have been impacted, further stating that the breach originated with a computer used by one of Okta's third-party customer support engineers to which the hackers had access. In December 2022, Okta's source code was hacked when a hacker gained access to their Github repository.

References

External links

* {{authority control, state=expanded Companies based in San Francisco Federated identity Identity management systems Cloud applications Companies listed on the Nasdaq Identity management Access control software Password authentication Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area American companies established in 2009 Software companies established in 2009 2017 initial public offerings Software companies of the United States