Okta, Inc.

Last updated
Okta, Inc.
FormerlySaasure Inc. (2009–2010)
Company type Public
Industry Software
FoundedJanuary 2009;15 years ago (2009-01)
Founders
  • Todd McKinnon
  • Frederic Kerrest
Headquarters 100 First Plaza
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
  • Todd McKinnon (CEO)
  • Frederic Kerrest (COO)
ProductsSingle Sign-On
RevenueIncrease2.svg US$2.26 billion (2024)
Increase Negative.svg US$−516 million (2024)
Increase Negative.svg US$−355 million (2024)
Total assets Decrease2.svg US$8.99 billion (2024)
Total equity Increase2.svg US$5.89 billion (2024)
Number of employees
5,908 (2024)
Website okta.com
Footnotes /references
Financials as of January 31,2024. [1]

Okta, Inc. (formerly SaaSure Inc.) is an American identity and access management company based in San Francisco. [2] 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. [3] It was founded in 2009 and had its initial public offering in 2017, reaching a valuation of over $6 billion.

Contents

Products and services

Okta sells six services, including a single-sign-on service that allows users to log into a variety of systems using a single centralized process. For example, the company claims the ability to log into Gmail, Workday, Salesforce and Slack with one login. [4] [5] It also offers API authentication services. [6]

Okta's services are built on the Amazon Web Services cloud. [7]

Okta primarily targets enterprise businesses. Claimed customers as of 2020 include Zoominfo, JetBlue, Nordstrom, MGM Resorts International, and the U.S. Department of Justice. [8]

Okta runs an annual “Oktane” user conference, which in 2018 featured former US President Barack Obama as a keynote speaker. [9] [10] [11]

History

Logo until 2022 Okta logo.svg
Logo until 2022

Okta was co-founded in 2009 by Todd McKinnon and Frederic Kerrest, who previously worked together at Salesforce. [12]

In 2015, the company raised US $75 million in venture capital from Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, and Sequoia Capital, at a total initial valuation of US$1.2 billion. [13]

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. [14] [15] At the time of its IPO, Sequoia Capital was the biggest shareholder, with a 21.2 percent stake. [16]

In January 2019, Okta's CEO announced that the company has over 100 million registered users. [17]

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. [18]

In March 2021, Okta signed a definitive agreement to acquire Auth0 for $6.5 billion. [19] The deal closed in May 2021. [20] In August 2021, Okta acquired atSpoke for $90 million. [21] In December 2023, Okta acquired security firm Spera for approximately $100–130 million. [22]

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 camera setup. [23] They were able to download security footage from the cameras. [24] One member of the group, Maia Arson Crimew, also revealed that the group had gained root shell access to the network. [25] 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. [24] However, the shell would have given the hackers full access to execute any commands on the network, and Cloudflare admitted that a similar hack by the group on that company's network provided them with the same level of access. [26] 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. [27] 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. [28]

In December 2022, Okta's source code was stolen when a hacker gained access to their GitHub repository. [29]

In early October 2023, Okta was notified of a breach resulting in hackers stealing HTTP access tokens from Okta's support platform by BeyondTrust. Okta denied the incident for a number of weeks, but later recognized that a breach had occurred. [30] Customers impacted by the Okta breach included Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts International, 1Password and Cloudflare. [31] [32] [33] On November 29th, 2023, it was known that the security incident affected all Okta customers. [34] [35]

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References

  1. ↑ "Okta Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2024". March 1, 2024.
  2. ↑ Rivas, Teresa (December 6, 2017). "Okta CEO Is Feeling Optimistic. Looks Like Investors Are Too". Barron's. Retrieved April 8, 2018.
  3. ↑ Bridgwater, Adrian (May 23, 2018). "Okta Insists Identity 'Goes Beyond' Passwords". Forbes. Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  4. ↑ Ray, Tiernan. "Okta CEO: 'We Exist Because It's a Heterogenous World'" . Retrieved 2018-04-08.
  5. ↑ Ray, Tiernan. "Okta: A Bigger Deal Than Oracle Someday?" . Retrieved 2018-04-08.
  6. ↑ "Okta Wants To Go Big And Go It Alone in Enterprise Software". Fortune. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
  7. ↑ "This Enterprise Software Unicorn Just Filed to Go Public". Fortune. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
  8. ↑ "Okta Identity Cloud Securely Connects JetBlue to its Customers". Venturebeat. 2018-03-07. Retrieved 2019-06-26.
  9. ↑ Bridgwater, Adrian. "Inside Privacy: Okta CEO Takes Hardcore Line On Identity Management". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
  10. ↑ Bort, Julie. "I followed the CEO of $6 billion Okta around and learned the secrets of a tech conference that landed President Obama as a speaker". BusinessInsider. Retrieved 2019-06-26.
  11. ↑ Thadani, Trisha. "Barack Obama is speaking at a tech conference, but not one you'd expect". SFChronicle. Retrieved 2019-06-26.
  12. ↑ "Okta CEO McKinnon on the Tech IPO Landscape and Data Security" . Retrieved 2018-04-08.
  13. ↑ Ovide, Shira (2015-09-08). "Okta Raises $75 Million, Boosting Valuation to Nearly $1.2 Billion". WSJ. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
  14. ↑ "Okta shares soar nearly 39 percent in first day of trading". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
  15. ↑ Balakrishnan, Anita (2017-04-07). "Okta skyrockets more than 38% after IPO". CNBC. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
  16. ↑ "Okta shares soar nearly 39 percent in first day of trading". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
  17. ↑ Gurdus, Elizabeth (2019-01-24). "Okta CEO: We now have over 100 million registered users". www.cnbc.com. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  18. ↑ Brian Fung (27 August 2020). "Software company Okta will let most of its 2,600 employees work remotely permanently". CNN. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  19. ↑ Dignan, Larry. "Okta and Auth0: A $6.5 billion bet that identity will warrant its own cloud". ZDNet. Retrieved 2021-03-09.
  20. ↑ "Okta's Auth0 deal closes: Inside the 8-year, $6.5 billion courtship". Fortune. May 3, 2021. Archived from the original on 4 May 2021. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  21. ↑ Novinson, Michael. "Okta Quietly Buys Startup atSpoke to Fuel Identity Governance | CRN". www.crn.com. Retrieved 2024-07-16.
  22. ↑ "Okta snatches up security firm Spera, reportedly for over $100M". TechCrunch. 2023-12-19. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
  23. ↑ Turton, William (2021-03-09). "Hackers Breach Thousands of Security Cameras, Exposing Tesla, Jails, Hospitals". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  24. 1 2 Bradbury, David (2021-03-10). "A CSO's perspective on the recent Verkada cyber attack". Okta Security. Archived from the original on 2021-03-17. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
  25. ↑ Paresh, Dave (2021-03-10). "Tesla says Shanghai factory not hacked after breach of Verkada surveillance cameras". Reuters. Retrieved 2021-03-17.
  26. ↑ Graham-Cumming, John (2021-03-10). "About the March 8 & 9, 2021 Verkada camera hack". The Cloudflare Blog. Archived from the original on 2021-03-10. Retrieved 2021-03-17.
  27. ↑ "Authentication firm Okta probes report of digital breach". CNN. Retrieved 22 March 2022.
  28. ↑ Camacho, Antonio Ruiz (2022-03-23). "Okta Says Hundreds of Customers May Have Been Exposed by January Breach". CNET .
  29. ↑ "Okta had another security incident, this time involving stolen source code".
  30. ↑ "Hackers Stole Access Tokens from Okta's Support Unit". krebsonsecurity .
  31. ↑ Goswami, Rohan (2023-10-23). "Okta cybersecurity breach wipes out more than $2 billion in market cap". CNBC.
  32. ↑ Zaman, Sourov (2023-10-20). "How Cloudflare mitigated yet another Okta compromise". The Cloudflare Blog. Archived from the original on 2023-10-24. Retrieved 2023-10-25.
  33. ↑ GREIG, JONATHAN (2023-10-24). "How 1Password, Cloudflare affected by Okta compromise" . Retrieved 2023-10-25.
  34. ↑ Identity management company Okta reveals far more extensive hack of its systems
  35. ↑ Okta admits hackers accessed data on all customers during recent breach
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