Deepfake Defense and the Future of Identity Security: Takeaways from Oktane 2024

Okta’s annual Identity Conference is over! As an Okta partner and Oktane sponsor, here’s what we saw, heard, and learned.

Highlights:

• Okta publicly endorsed secure identity verification for employee onboarding, account recoveries and other high-risk scenarios.?
• As deepfakes (AI-generated video and image forgeries) become more realistic, they’re emerging as a primary threat.
• Nametag’ Deepfake Defense? and Okta IDV partnership are very timely.
• The new IPSIE open standard, led by Okta, will enhance interoperability across SaaS apps, and Nametag is aligned with this vision to boost enterprise security.

Prefer to watch your Oktane recap?

Deepfake Threats Take Center Stage

Oktane this year was full of conversations about deepfakes: how realistic they’ve become, how threat actors are using them, and how to detect them.?We even saw (or rather, heard) a deepfake voice Okta CEO Todd McKinnon "talking" to Chief Product Officer for Workforce Identity Cloud, Arnab Bose.

We’re not surprised that deepfakes and generative AI were top of mind. Researchers repeatedly showing how AI-generated IDs and deepfakes can easily bypass traditional user authentication systems, posing significant risks to account security. Know Your Customer (KYC) systems, for example, are widely used for regulatory compliance, but many rely on insecure capture channels and outdated liveness detection techniques.

“What we're seeing is bad actors getting savvier and savvier, and securing our workforce getting harder and harder every day." –– Arnab Bose, Chief Product Officer for Workforce Identity Cloud at Okta

Identity Verification Integrations for Okta Account Protection

The threat of deepfakes is why, on Tuesday at Oktane, we were thrilled to introduce Deepfake Defense? for Okta. Our combined solution for Okta account protection is available today (you can get up and running in 10 min with our full-featured free trial).

Deepfake Defense is our next-generation identity verification engine, endorsed by renowned security technologist Bruce Schneier. It combines our proprietary technology and innovations across cryptography, biometrics, AI and other areas to combat AI-powered impersonation while verifying legitimate users quickly and more securely.?

“Nametag's Deepfake Defense engine is the first scalable solution for remote identity verification that's capable of blocking the AI deepfake attacks plaguing enterprises.” — Bruce Schneier, Internationally-Renowned Security Technologist & Cryptography Expert

To learn more about Deepfake Defense and our Okta partnership, visit our blog or watch our Oktane recap webinar recording.

Okta Announces The Interoperability Profile for Secure Identity in the Eterprise (IPSIE)

Other big keynote news at Oktane included the Interoperability Profile for Secure Identity in the Enterprise. IPSIE is a new open-source security framework set to be adopted by Microsoft, Ping Identity and others. Its purpose is to improve end-to-end security across SaaS apps. IPSIE-compliant apps will be “secure by default”.

“Our goal with IPSIE is to standardize identity security and help foster an open ecosystem where building and using enterprise applications that are secure by default is easy for everyone.” — Todd McKinnon, CEO and Co-Founder at Okta

A few things stuck out to us about the IPSIE announcement. In particular, we were struck by the focus on interoperability and Okta CEO Todd McKinnon’s description of Okta as “the world’s largest independent and neutral identity company”.

This is a big thing for Nametag, too. We know that modern enterprises have complex tech stacks that frequently include more than one IdP. It’s why we built our self-service account recovery solution to work with all of your identity providers, including Entra, Cisco Duo, and OneLogin, not just Okta.?

The Future of Identity Security is Here, and It Looks Like Deepfake Defense + Integrated Account Protection

Threat actors have been quick to adopt generative AI to supercharge their social engineering schemes. Defenses have been slow to keep up, but not Nametag.

Our newly-announced Deepfake Defense engine is the first and only identity verification system that delivers the level of identity security and assurance required for high-risk account protection scenarios like MFA provisioning and account recoveries.

We were beyond excited to be sponsoring Oktane, announcing Deepfake Defense, and showcasing both our expanded partnership and out-of-the-box solutions for Okta.

Together, Nametag and Okta are creating the future of identity security. Explore our press release, blog post and Deepfake Defense webpage. Ready to see it in action? Request a demo today!