Global Real Estate Services Company Implements CyberArk Okta MFA Integration to Harden Authorized Access

Focused on empowering independent sales agents to best serve today’s consumers, a leading residential real estate services provider delivers brokerage, franchising, relocation, mortgage and title and settlement services around the globe through its well-known industry brands. A long-time CyberArk customer, the organization recently implemented an additional layer of security to protect its most sensitive privileged account information. The company has a global presence and employs 288,000 people. They have been using CyberArk solutions for over six years to protect, control, and monitor privileged access to critical information, including 500+ systems and one of its primary data centers. The company has also been accelerating its move to the cloud to improve efficiencies, scale processes, deliver enhanced client services, and maintain its edge in the competitive real estate market.

According to the 2017 Verizon Data Breach Investigative Report, 81 percent of data breaches involve weak or stolen credentials. Understanding that many cyber attackers focus their efforts on harvesting privileged credentials, the real estate services company has trusted CyberArk for more than six years to protect, control and monitor privileged access to critical information—including 500+ systems and one of its primary data centers. In the past three years, the organization has accelerated its move to the cloud to improve efficiencies, scale processes, deliver enhanced client services and maintain its edge in the ultra-competitive real estate market. Despite its many benefits, the cloud’s multiplier effect has created exponentially more privileged account credentials and secrets that are highly targeted by attackers and need to be properly managed and protected. As part of their cloud journey, the organization’s security team sought a way to further enhance security around these powerful, privileged account credentials through an additional, complementary security layer: multi-factor authentication (MFA).

After an exploratory phase, the organization selected Okta to support its comprehensive MFA approach. After testing Okta Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication with Azure and Exchange Online, the organization was impressed with the reliability and flexibility of the solution and began sending nearly all of its applications to Okta for authentication. Employees can access virtually all of their applications—from internally managed applications such as email to externally managed applications like AWS and a third-party benefits portal—through a user-friendly landing page. The CyberArk Okta integration took place in December 2017 to help secure and centralize authentication to resources throughout the organization via a single sign-on to the CyberArk solution. The integration was timed with an upgrade to the latest version of the CyberArk Privileged Access Security Solution. Thanks to straightforward documentation and helpful support on both sides, the CyberArk Okta integration deployment was simple and pain-free, taking less than half a day to get up and running. As part of this seamless integration, the CyberArk Privileged Access Security Solution was added to the organization’s Okta application management dashboard. The CyberArk solution enables the security team to efficiently manage privileged credentials and access rights, while proactively monitoring and controlling privileged activity. Through SAML integration, Okta’s Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication solution hardens access to the CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault by enforcing MFA policies based on device, user, and location attributes. This integral security layer ensures that only authorized privileged users can access their accounts.

• The CyberArk Okta integration has helped the organization reduce the risk of a breach due to compromised credentials and unauthorized access. Today, Okta authenticates all users to the CyberArk solution. Real-time security reporting of authentication and access events gives the team additional visibility and insight into user access details.
• Through a secure integration to AD/LDAP, CyberArk and Okta provide secure directory integration, allowing admins to set password complexity and customizable policies—helping the team effectively balance security and end-user productivity and experience.
• The integration has also helped the organization to automate its provisioning processes. On-premises Active Directory security groups now handle provisioning of accounts and delegation of access to the CyberArk solution, which has eliminated manual management and resulted in significant time savings for the security team.
• The joint solution has also aided the organization in reducing identity sprawl by restricting access to services via intelligent SAML connections.

• Fast, seamless integration in less than half a day
• Fully automated, customizable provisioning for users
• Deep visibility and insight into user access details
• An additional layer of security for sensitive privileged account information