How Multifactor Authentication Supports Growth for Businesses Focused on Zero Trust

Williams and his IT team researched several identity and access management solutions and soon chose OneLogin, becoming early adopters of multifactor authentication (MFA). There was some concern at the time about how the solution would be received, but those worries were soon dispelled, Williams says.

“Any initial doubt was overcome with additional training, both in person and prerecorded by our communications team,” he recalls.

Today, solutions such as MFA and single sign-on (SSO) are more widely recognized as cornerstones of a zero-trust security model.

Only the smallest companies, those “without a lot of intellectual property,” can “probably” do without MFA, says Jay Bretzmann, research vice president for identity, digital trust and cloud security at IDC. “But if they grow — if they become suppliers and have people logging in from different entities, for example — it becomes a different environment, and these tools become more necessary,” he says.

In reality, that characterizes most companies, which explains the rapid growth of MFA adoption, Bretzmann adds. Still, there’s plenty of room to expand. “If the market is about $20 billion now, when all is said and done it will be $100 billion,” he says.

Securing Growth at MillerKnoll

Everyday consumers encounter MFA when they interact with a business that requires additional verification information, such as a code sent by text or a fingerprint. SSO is another authentication strategy that allows known partners or employees to access a predefined set of applications, websites or data by logging in just once, whether they are in the office or working remotely.

Used together, these identity and access management tools greatly reduce the ability of bad actors to infiltrate a system.

To combat bad actors directly, Williams and his team at MillerKnoll worked closely with OneLogin to deploy its MFA solution to the entire company, which now exceeds 23,000 users in more than 100 countries.

The company began with a phased rollout. “We had a large enough technical user base to ensure we caught any application compatibility issues immediately,” Williams says.

Additional training helped some users overcome their concerns that the new security measures would slow them down. 

“I provided a multifactor roadshow to our separate business units, educating the users on not only the benefits of MFA to protect the enterprise but how it can protect their personal information,” he recalls. “This was also an opportunity to remind our user community of the basics of email security and best practices.”

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Williams credits OneLogin for being an outstanding partner. “Find a partner that will help your team not only flip the switch but that also understands the impact and can define a full architecture for MFA that is supportable and able to be communicated within the enterprise,” he says.

Today, Williams estimates that MillerKnoll’s MFA solution has helped the company save millions as it has matured and merged with and acquired other companies. Adding employees and applications to the MillerKnoll family now takes weeks rather than months.

“When we started by enabling MFA on Microsoft 365, it immediately stopped email accounts from being compromised,” Williams says. “Today, about 90 percent of our applications are protected by MFA. And now, OneLogin has a very robust, adaptive solution that is very configurable and powerful, allowing a more granular deployment of MFA without reducing our security posture.”

LEARN MORE: Get expert advice on improving your zero-trust security model.

How to Roll Out MFA to Attorneys

Like MillerKnoll, Stinson, a national law firm with 450 attorneys in 13 offices, was an early adopter of MFA.

“Cisco Duo’s interface was very attractive because it’s focused on ease of use for customers,” says Chief Information and Risk Officer Vaughan Butts. “It provided us with a yes/no authentication response instead of requiring users to key in a six- or eight-digit code, which was a common solution at the time.”

After performing several pilots and beta testing, Stinson launched MFA services for a selection of attorneys and business staff who were approved for remote access. Butts and Nicholas Pelczar, the firm’s director of information security and business continuity, say the rollout was reasonably smooth because of proactive communication with staff members.

“There was some hesitancy regarding us implementing MFA, because attorneys are always concerned about disruption of workflows,” Butts says. “But once it was deployed, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.”

“We communicated why MFA was important and that we wanted to align with best practices in the industry to safeguard data,” Pelczar says.

Eventually, MFA and SSO were extended to the entire organization. They have also become standard for other cloud-native technology solutions leveraged by Stinson, such as its email and endpoint security services.

“MFA has become a standard security practice for large and small organizations, as well as for individuals in their personal lives,” Pelczar says. “We certainly see that as an improvement in supporting our users, protecting their information and protecting our clients’ information.”

Simplifying Secure Access to Applications

With nearly 10,000 hotels worldwide, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts is the world’s largest hotel franchisor. The company’s continued success in the hospitality industry depends on choosing partners that can deliver quality services at scale.

“It’s crucial that companies provide employees with a simple way to lean into quality technology while also having the ability to monitor and limit suspicious activity,” says Joe Gothelf, vice president of cybersecurity at Wyndham.

Wyndham chose Okta for its MFA and SSO services and continues to collaborate with the company. MFA and SSO help streamline operations for its thousands of franchisees and workers.

“It took days or weeks to get a new team member access to the right applications and tools. That can now be done easily with SSO,” Gothelf says. “On the flip side, when a team member decides to leave, we can more seamlessly deactivate access, which makes for a safer environment. For franchisees, we can simplify things such as how they pay their staff or how they manage reservations. Those practices make for better business operations and give staffers better experiences.”

Gothelf says he appreciates the flexibility of Okta in a fast-moving environment: “Leveraging tools such as SSO and MFA helps us to consolidate what items we’re looking at from a security perspective, and it gives us a strong view into what’s happening across our technological ecosystem. We live in a world where things need to happen fast and they can’t require many layers, and the right systems make that happen behind the scenes.”

Editor's note: This article was originally published in September 12, 2024.