Specops Authentication: What We Added in H1 2024

New ID Services (Passkeys, Entra ID), Securing First Day Passwords, & More

Specops Authentication is our platform that secures self-service key recovery and password resets, changes and account unlocks with multi-factor authentication (MFA), via self-service and/or at the IT service desk. The platform powers products like Specops uReset, Specops Secure Service Desk and Specops Key Recovery.

We released a lot for our Specops Authentication platform since our last round-up of the second half of 2023. We’ve added new identity service options for MFA, a new solution for securing initial passwords, and more.

Let’s take a look at some highlights.

New ID Services: Passkeys and Entra ID

We introduced two new ID services for the Specops Authentication platform, passkeys and Entra ID.

Passkeys: a secure and low-cost ID service

Passkeys are a FIDO credential that is stored on your users’ devices or hardware tokens. For the end user to utilize their passkeys to authenticate with a Specops Authentication product, they simply have to unlock their phone (with biometrics or PIN), respond to a prompt on their device, or engage their hardware token. Examples of passkeys include Windows Hello, Yubikey, Bitwarden and any authentication app such as Google Authenticator. End users can only authenticate with passkeys they have enrolled with Specops Authentication.

An end user enrolls a new Passkey
An end user enrolls a new Passkey

While any user can make use of passkeys as an authentication method if the admin enables them as an ID service, you might find this ID service a better fit for your more technically-inclined end users. Passkeys should also not be used as the sole ID service option as they cannot be used from the Specops Authentication Client. More information about how to get started with Passkeys is available here.

Entra ID: enabling passwordless authentication for some scenarios

Entra ID is now supported as an ID service for Specops Authentication products. With some configuration, this ID service can be used to enable passwordless authentication. Customers may find this useful for passwordless sign-in for many scenarios, including:

  • Admin sign-in to the Specops Authentication web portal (any product)
  • Service desk agent sign-in (Specops Secure Service Desk)
  • End user sign-in for self-service password reset (Specops uReset)
An end user is authenticating with Entra ID
An end user is authenticating with Entra ID

Read more about how Entra ID as an identity service works here.

New: Secure First-Time Passwords with First Day Password

Specops Software can now help secure passwords set as part of the employee onboarding process.

With First Day Password, organizations can say goodbye to insecure methods of sharing first day passwords and say hello to end users verifying who they are before setting their first day password themselves.

A new employee is about to set their first password after authenticating with First Day Password
A new employee is about to set their first password after authenticating with First Day Password

Specops Password Policy customers will be able to enforce their password policy from minute one of the new hire’s start date.

Curious how your new hire password process could be improved?

See how it works.

And more

These were just some highlights of improvements and features we added to the Specops Authentication platform since our last round-up. To review everything we added, check out the release notes.

Want to see how some of these features could work for your organization? Contact us.

(Last updated on July 10, 2024)

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