Okta Identity Engine release notes (Preview)

UI improvements to the User profile risk tab

Columns of the table on the User profile risk tab have been reordered for better visibility, and context change events have been replaced with policy violation events.

LDAP Bidirectional Group Management

Bidirectional Group Management for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) allows you to manage LDAP groups from within Okta. You can add or remove users from groups based on their identity and access requirements. This ensures that changes made to user access in Okta are reflected in LDAP.

Okta can only manage group memberships for users and groups imported into Okta using the LDAP or Active Directory (AD) integration. It isn't possible to manage users and groups that weren't imported through LDAP or AD integration or are outside the organizational unit's scope for the integration using this feature.

More granular maximum clock skew options for LDAP incremental imports

More granular maximum clock skew intervals for LDAP incremental imports have been added to allow for better tuning and improved performance. You can now configure the clock skew to 1, 2, 5, or 10 minutes. This granularity helps you improve import speed by using a clock skew value closer to the actual maximum clock drive of your LDAP server. It also prevents missed updates when the server's clock temporarily moves backward, which ensures data accuracy.

Custom FIDO2 AAGUID

Customers can add non-FIDO Metadata Service (MDS) security keys and other authenticators and have more granular control over them. This extends FIDO2 (WebAuthn) authenticator support to a wider range of security keys and other authenticators, which gives customers greater flexibility and control over the security in their environment.

Associated domains

Associated domains let you build a trust relationship among your app, the referring domain, the user's credentials that are associated with that domain, and your brand in Okta. This feature makes it easier to adopt phishing-resistant authenticators, like passkeys in the FIDO2 (WebAuthn) authenticator. See Configure associated domains.

Maximum consecutive characters setting for passwords

You can now set a maximum number of consecutive repeating characters in passwords. This feature enhances security by allowing you to customize your password strength requirements.

Workday supports incremental imports

Workday now has the ability to run immediate, incremental imports. Incremental imports are much faster than full imports. However, they don't detect when users only have changes to custom attributes, so you must periodically run a full import to capture these changes. See Incremental imports

Same-device enrollment for Okta FastPass

On orgs with Okta FastPass, the Okta Verify enrollment process has been streamlined: - Users can initiate and complete enrollment on the device they're currently using. Previously, two different devices were required to set up an account. - Users no longer need to enter their org URL during enrollment. - The enrollment flow has fewer steps. This feature is supported on Android, iOS, and macOS devices.

Prevent new single-factor access to the Admin Console

This feature prevents admins from configuring any new single-factor access to the Admin Console. This feature is currently available to new orgs only.

Application Entitlement Policy

Admins can now override attribute mapping when assigning apps to individuals or groups. You can also revert attributes to their default mappings. See Override application attribute mapping. This feature will be gradually made available to all orgs.

End-user setting for nicknaming factors

End users can now nickname their phone, WebAuthn, and Okta Verify factors. If they have enrolled multiple instances of a factor, giving nicknames helps them identify the factors quickly (for example, "My personal cellphone" or "My office MacBook TouchID"). See the end-user documentation. This is a self-service feature.

Content security policy enforcement on end-user pages

Content security policy is now enforced for end-user pages on orgs with custom domains on non-customizable pages. Content Security Policy headers provide an additional layer of security that helps to detect attacks such as cross-site scripting and data injection by ensuring browsers know what kind of actions the webpage can execute. We already had a policy enforced in our admin pages from last year and in report-only mode for end-user pages. We plan that future iterations of our Content Security Policy enforcement for end-user pages will become stricter than this first release.

This feature will be gradually made available to all orgs.

Descriptive System Log events

When Okta identifies a security threat, the resulting security.threat.detected System Log entry now provides a descriptive reason for the event. See System Log.

New flexible LDAP

A new LDAP schema allows flexibility by moving email to the custom schema and making first name, last name, username, and UID optional. This avoids error scenarios when an LDAP schema doesn't include specific attributes.

ThreatInsight coverage on core Okta API endpoints

Okta ThreatInsight coverage is now available for core Okta API endpoints:

• OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0
• Okta Management
• MyAccount API

Based on heuristics and machine learning models, Okta ThreatInsight maintains an evolving list of IP addresses that consistently show malicious activity across Okta's customer base. Requests from these bad IP addresses can be blocked or elevated for further analysis when Okta ThreatInsight is enabled for an Okta org. Previously, Okta ThreatInsight coverage only applied to Okta authentication endpoints (including enrollment and recovery endpoints). With this release, enhanced attack patterns are detected for authentication endpoints and limited attack patterns are also detected for non-authentication endpoints. There are no changes to the existing Okta ThreatInsight configuration. You can still enable Okta ThreatInsight with log and block mode, log mode, and exempt network zones. A new Negative IP Reputation reason is available for high security.threat.detected events. See System Log events for Okta ThreatInsight.

SSO apps dashboard widget

The new SSO apps widget displays the number of user sign-in events across each of your org's apps over a selected period of time. You can use it to see which apps are used most frequently and to easily monitor the authentication activity across your org.

Email failure events in the System Log

Admins can now view email delivery failure events in the System Log. This helps admins better monitor the email event activity in their org. See System Log.

Improvements to the self-service unlock process

Earlier versions of the self-service unlock (SSU) flow created unnecessary friction in the end user experience. The newly enhanced SSU feature introduces a seamless magic link experience in emails sent out to unlock accounts. Users no longer need to provide consent when using the same browser. In addition, after successfully unlocking their account, clicking the email magic link counts towards the app's assurance policy. After the assurance requirements are met, the user is signed directly in to the app.

Improvements to the self-service registration experience

Earlier versions of the self-service registration (SSR) flow used a complicated array of templates to send activation emails to end users. The simplified SSR flow reduces this to only two email templates with customized welcome messages. If your app requires immediate verification of the end user's email address, Okta uses the Registration - Activation template. This template includes a magic link for a smoother sign-in experience. If email verification isn't immediately required to sign in to the app, Okta uses the Registration - Email Verification template. This template includes a link for end users to complete email verification at any time after they successfully sign in to the app.

Device Authorization grant type

Advancements in internet technology have seen an explosion of smart devices and the Internet of Things. Consumers need to sign in to apps that run on these devices, but the devices either lack support for a web browser or have limited ability for input, such as smart TVs, car consoles, and thermostats. As a result, users resort to insecure authentication solutions that are error prone and time consuming.

The Device Authorization grant feature is an OAuth 2.0 grant type that allows users to sign in to input-constrained devices and also to devices that lack web browsers. This feature enables users to use a secondary device, such as a laptop or mobile phone, to sign-in to apps that run on such devices.