Israeli startup Secret Double Octopus has made its Octopus multi-factor authentification (MFA) tool available for Mac enterprise users.
Octopus makes password-free MFA viable for macOS’s running within corporate networks managed by Microsoft’s Active Directory (AD).
Microsoft’s AD centralises authentication and authorisation for domain resources.
The company already supports push-based MFA available across services including AWS, Linux, Windows, SAP Cloud, Cisco VPN and more, using its Android and iOS app.
In a release Wednesday, company noted that by only using one password to access all resources, AD passwords are a lucrative target for attacks.
In place of passwords, Octopus Authentication enables login from a macOS host using a high-assurance, password-free authenticator. It supports access to all enterprise resources, whether on-premise, remotely accessed or in the cloud.
“The Mac is all about top notch user experience, but at the workplace things get complicated due to security concerns, as users need to memorise and change complex passwords,” said Raz Rafaeli, the company’s CEO.
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“Octopus Authentication for macOS eliminates the nuisance of passwords at work, introducing multi-factor authentication at every login.”
Secret Double Octopus created a keyless authentication platform based around Secret Sharing: an information-theoretic security algorithm established in 1979 by cryptographers Adi Shamir and George Blakley.
It uses simple push notifications on a phone to login.
The company’s CTO and co-founder Shimrit Tzur-David has previous blogged against hardware authentification tokens like Yubico or Google’s Titian keys, noting that they are easily lost, use bluetooth and hence require charging and don’t absolve users of the need to use a password.
“Most solution based on FIDO protocols, do not eliminate the need for passwords completely, they fall under the category of Universal Second Factor (U2F). Titan’s scheme and that of similar tools use the security key the second factor only, and still require the user to remember a pin or personal code”
The company has been hotly tipped: it is a Gartner Cool Vendor, Business Insider “Startup that will boom in 2018”, PwC game-changer for Global Financial Services Innovation, and recipient of the Frost and Sullivan “Technology Innovation Award”.
