Okta suffers a security breach — hackers gain access to sensitive customer info

Okta, the San Francisco-based identity and access management company, reported a security breach on Friday. Hackers gained access to private customer information through its customer support management system.

In a site-wide announcement, Okta Chief Security Officer David Bradbury revealed that hackers viewed content uploaded by some Okta customers related to recent support cases. These files, known as HTTP archive (HAR) files, help support personnel replicate customer browser activity for troubleshooting.

"HAR files can also contain sensitive data, including cookies and session tokens, that malicious actors can use to impersonate valid users," Bradbury said.

Bradbury did not disclose how the credentials were stolen nor if two-factor authentication was in place for the compromised support system. To mitigate the damage, Okta revoked embedded session tokens and advised customers to sanitize credentials within HAR files before sharing.

According to Arstechnica, the initial hack was stopped by security firm BeyondTrust, which alerted Okta to suspicious activity about a month ago. However, due to some flaws within Okta's security model, some actions were still carried out by malicious actors.

Bradbury confirmed that all affected customers have been informed. He also provided IP addresses and browser user agents associated with the hackers for further investigation. He also added that Okta's main production service and Auth0/CIC case management system remain unaffected.

Okta has had its fair share of hacker troubles lately. In March 2022, a group called Lapsus$ accessed an Okta admin panel, allowing them to reset customer passwords and authentication credentials. In December of that same year, Okta's source code was stolen from a GitHub account.