Bitwarden Resources

Bitwarden and Okta: Enhance security with plug and play integration

Bitwarden and Okta together deliver a comprehensive identity access management (IAM) and single sign-on (SSO) solution for centralized SaaS applications and individual employee empowerment.

Overview

With a rise in software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications deployed by enterprises, as well as a sharp uptick in cybercrime, many businesses rely on Identity Access Management (IAM) and single sign-on (SSO) solutions like Okta to improve their cybersecurity posture. Besides a reduction in the number of employee login IDs and passwords, consolidating access through SSO helps to improve the user experience and enhance productivity. By integrating Okta and Bitwarden, businesses can securely provision all password management data, including apps that haven’t assimilated to the SSO system.

However, organizations may still have logistical and security gaps due to applications or services that do not support logging in with SSO. A password manager like Bitwarden enables employees to protect work accounts with strong and unique passwords, securely share sensitive information, and extend SSO deployments with integrated password encryption. Furthermore, by integrating Bitwarden with Okta, IT managers have complete oversight and control of different tools and applications various teams within a company are using.

Integrating Bitwarden and Okta together deliver a comprehensive identity and access management strategy from centralized SaaS applications to individual employee empowerment. The integration is simple and secure and takes minimal time for administrators to configure.

The benefits of Bitwarden and Okta for SSO and user provisioning

Reduce the number of passwords and credentials needed by employees, decreasing the surface area of a potential cyberattack.
Simplify platform access for employees in order to streamline user onboarding and succession.
Standardize authentication across browser, mobile, desktop, and command line interfaces.
Integrate into existing workflows without disruption while maintaining security.
Automatically provision and deprovision users in Bitwarden through SCIM or Bitwarden Directory Connector for easy user access management for IT systems, SaaS products, internal tools, and more.
Strengthen overall enterprise security by identifying and eliminating weak or reused passwords.

Integration Details: Authenticating into Bitwarden

By using Okta to authenticate into Bitwarden, users can access the wide world of applications and services that are not available via SSO. For businesses using Okta, Bitwarden integrates through industry standard interfaces. This provides customers the ability to use Okta as their identity provider while still achieving the ease and security of password management.

Bitwarden offers the following implementation options for Okta:

Okta SSO SAML implementation
Okta SSO OIDC implementation
Okta directory integration and user provisioning via Bitwarden Directory Connector
Okta directory integration and user provisioning via SCIM

With SSO and non-encrypted applications, users authenticate with Okta credentials to access multiple applications. To maintain zero knowledge encryption for sensitive passwords, Bitwarden separates authentication and decryption into two discrete steps: authentication through Okta, then decryption and vault access through a Bitwarden master password. As a result, decryption keys never pass through Bitwarden servers.