The Top 11 Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Solutions For Business

JumpCloud is an Open Directory Platform™ that enables organizations to enforce and manage identity and access management tools—such as multi-factor authentication and single sign-on—and device management tools—mobile device management and patch management—via a single, central interface. JumpCloud makes it easy for IT admins to secure their users’ accounts and devices, implement and maintain Zero Trust policies, and demonstrate compliance with data protection standards.

JumpCloud’s MFA solution enables admins to secure user accounts against credential related breaches such as brute force and phishing attacks. Via the JumpCloud ProtectTM app, JumpCloud MFA supports a range of authentication methods that include push notification, universal second factor (UTF) keys, time-based one-time passwords (TOTPs), and in-device biometrics, enabling admins to choose the method best suited to their users to deliver a more secure and frictionless login experience.

JumpCloud administrators can set policies around logins—such as the user’s device and location—and, if the login is deemed out of policy, users are prompted to verify their identities via MFA. This helps to secure accounts against unauthorized access by attackers to access sensitive data through the use of stolen credentials. JumpCloud MFA also streamlines the administration process for IT administrators. Admins can enforce MFA easily from the same portal for all users; with the platform’s user-friendly enrollment feature, admins can establish flexible time frames for users to set up MFA remotely, with automated reminders to ensure that users comply.

JumpCloud MFA is entirely cloud-based, making it easily scalable, as well as quick to deploy and integrate with an organization’s existing IT environment. The JumpCloud Protect app is compatible with Apple iOS and Android devices and can be used as a second factor with macOS, Windows and Linux devices, VPN and wireless networks, and servers.

JumpCloud is used by over 180,000 organizations worldwide and is consistently ranked as a top solution by customers. Users praise JumpCloud for its simple, user-friendly interface and admins praise the ease with which they can implement MFA across their organizations. We recommend JumpCloud MFA as a smart choice for small, medium enterprises and mid-market organizations looking for easy-to-manage account security that they can roll out across a remote or hybrid workforce with minimum effort using their existing resources.

ManageEngine is an established software vendor that forms the IT management division of business software company Zoho Corporation. ADSelfService Plus is its powerful password management, multi-factor authentication, and single sign-on solution that offers Endpoint MFA to help organizations better secure access to machines (Windows, macOS, and LinuxOS), VPNs, applications, endpoints, and Outlook Web Access (OWA). In terms of pricing, ADSelfService Plus comes in three tiers (Free, Standard, and Professional), but we should note that Endpoint MFA capabilities are only available as part of the highest tier—Professional Edition—which starts at $1195 for 500 domain users annually.

ADSelfService Plus enables organizations to protect multiple points of access with its strong MFA capabilities. Users can also protect SSO logins with MFA, both reducing the need to remember multiple passwords while adding an extra layer of security. The solution works firstly by authenticating user identity via their Active Directory domain credentials. Users are then prompted to authenticate using a second factor of authentication—with the platform offering an impressive 18 modes of authenticating identity, including security questions, SMS and email codes, authenticator apps, hardware security tokens, and QR codes, fingerprint, and facial recognition, and more. From the admin console, admins can also configure conditional access policies to determine which authentication methods are enforced for which groups of users and in which contexts.

In terms of installation, the solution can be installed both on servers and machines. Admins can also choose whether to install the 64-bit version or the 32-bit version, depending on their requirements. Current users’ rate ADSelfService Plus highly for its simple set up and deployment and easy-to-use platform. As a trusted partner to nine in ten Fortune 100 companies, we recommend ManageEngine’s ADSelfService Plus for larger organizations—particularly in industries such as finance, IT, healthcare, and government—that are looking for strong MFA to secure all access points, alongside advanced self-service password management capabilities and SSO.

Thales is a cloud data security provider that offers solutions for a number of user cases, including human and machine identity verification, access authorization, data discovery and encryption. SafeNet Trusted Access is Thales’ access management and authentication solution that enables organizations to manage user access to corporate applications and cloud services via a single, unified platform. To help ensure account security and protect against credential-based attacks such as account takeover, SafeNet Trusted Access features multi-factor authentication, adaptive and contextual authentication, integrated single sign-on and scenario-based access policies.

SafeNet Trusted Access verifies user identities via risk-based or “adaptive” multi-factor authentication. It analyzes the context of each users’ login for anomalous behavior and increases authentication requirements only if the login is considered unusual or risky. This ensures security without impacting end users’ login experience unnecessarily. SafeNet Trusted Access supports a wide range of authentication methods, including traditional password- and token-based authentication, certificate-based smart cards and integrated Kerberos authentication as well as modern authentication technologies such as SAML and OIDC. As well as MFA, SafeNet Trusted Access offers in-built single sign-on, which enables users to access all of their cloud applications via one set of login credentials (and one authentication process where necessary). Admins can manage MFA, adaptive authentication and SSO policies via one central policy engine. All policies can be configured at a user, group or application level.

Delivered as-a-Service, SafeNet Trusted Access deploys quickly in the cloud and offers the flexibility to easily scale as your organization grows. The platform supports authentication across Windows, MacOS, iOS and Android operating systems, as well as VPNs and cloud services. End users praise Thales’ solution for its ease of use, while admins praise its consistency and customer support. We recommend Thales SafeNet Trusted Access as a strong MFA solution for organizations who want to secure user access to cloud and web-bsaed applications and VPN usage, and particularly those who want integrated SSO combined with strong authentication capabilities.

Duo Security, acquired by Cisco in 2018, provides an access management solution that secures employee access to corporate accounts, helping businesses to reduce credential-based security risks and meet regulatory compliance. Duo’s solution is available via five plans, from a compact version for smaller teams right through to a comprehensive enterprise-grade version for larger businesses. This enables Duo to help organizations of any size to secure and monitor their account access.

Duo Security’s zero-trust MFA enables users to verify their identities via the Duo mobile app, which allows users to easily hit “approve” or “deny” for login attempts. Duo also integrates with universal 2^nd factor authentication tokens, FIDO-supported hardware tokens, mobile passcodes, U2F USB devices, and biometric controls built into the user’s device, such as FaceID. Duo’s integrated SSO means that users only have to verify their identity at the beginning of their session, ensuring a seamless login experience that causes the user little disruption.

From the management console, admins can configure adaptive authentication policies based on factors such as user location, device and role. Duo checks user login data against these policies for anomalous access attempts, to ensure that further verification is only required for logins which are considered to be high-risk, increasing login efficiency.

Duo is cloud-based and integrates natively with existing applications. This makes it easy to roll out across an organization and gives the solution the flexibility to scale up as your business grows. We recommend Cisco Secure Access by Duo as a strong MFA solution for organizations of all sizes looking for a user-friendly yet powerful MFA solution.

IBM Security Verify is an enterprise access management solution that is designed to protect user data and identities for companies on-premises or in the cloud. Its AI-boosted contextual authentication processes enable efficient and secure customer and workforce Identity and Access Management (IAM).

IBM provides a user-friendly, low-friction, cloud-native, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) approach, providing effective protection for users and applications across the enterprise. Key features of IBM Security Verify include single sign-on, with centralized control for both cloud and on-premises applications, thereby helping to simplify multiple password handling. The solution enforces advanced authentication capabilities, including passwordless authentication and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).

IBM Security Verify’s adaptive access feature utilizes machine learning to continuously assess user risks based on context, ensuring high accuracy. It also provides detailed templates for consent management, aiding in meeting specific privacy law requirements. The solution’s lifecycle management feature aligns application access with employee workflows, offering a consolidated control panel to ensure the right access for different users and teams.

The solution also offers identity analytics which enables risk scanning across users, entitlements, and applications, providing a comprehensive view of potential vulnerabilities. For those gradually transitioning to cloud IAM, IBM Security Verify Access offers a flexible hybrid IAM solution with robust capabilities that can be deployed on-premises, in a virtual or hardware appliance.

IBM Security Verify delivers AI-powered identity intelligence, effective authentication security measures, and is a flexible enterprise service, aiming to meet the dynamic needs of your organization’s security requirements through providing an effective path to authentication in the cloud.

Microsoft offers a leading enterprise MFA solution delivered as Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory), a cloud-based identity and access management platform that enables employees to access applications securely and easily. It allows access to Microsoft 365, Entra, and thousands of integrated SaaS applications, as well as internal applications and custom cloud applications.

Microsoft Entra ID MFA works by enforcing an additional verification check when users sign into Microsoft’s services, or applications connected to Entra ID, helping to reduce the risk of account compromise. Microsoft supports a wide range of authentication methods, including Microsoft’s own Authenticator app, Windows Hello For Business, FIDO2 Security Keys, OATH hardware and software tokens, SMS codes, and voice calls.

End users can easily add and manage any of these authentication methods, with admins able to configure authentication policies to suit their unique use case. They can, for example, enforce number matching to reduce MFA bypass attacks, or implement passwordless authentication thereby removing the password from the authentication process and replacing it with a secure MFA process.

From the activity dashboard, admins can monitor which authentication methods are being used across the organization. Admins can also configure conditional access policies that govern when additional multi-factor authentication rules are applied, based on users and groups, IP location, device, application, and risk signal detection.

We highly recommend all Microsoft 365 users enforce Entra ID multi-factor authentication across their accounts. It is straightforward to roll out, and massively improves account security for all users. Microsoft Entra ID is a feature-rich authentication solution for organizations using Microsoft 365 looking to secure accounts with trusted MFA.

OKTA’s multi-factor authentication solution secures access for all your business accounts by authenticating all of your employees, partners and customers’ identities. OKTA’s service is designed to be secure, simple and intelligent. They’ve focussed on creating an easy to use admin portal that enforces MFA across the organization, with policies that enforces contextual based login in challenges.

What this in effect means is that users are prompted to verify their accounts based on contextual factors, so that user productivity is only impacted when it’s necessary for security reasons. For example, you may be prompted to authenticate your identity when you log in at a new location, on a new IP address, or on a new device. OKTA also support a range of different authentication methods, including security questions, one time passcodes sent via SMS, voice and email, a mobile app and biometrics.

Customers praise OKTA for it’s feature-rich offering, with an intuitive user interface. Customers report that it’s easy to sign in quickly, with different options for verification that means you can get into accounts even if you don’t have your phone to hand. OKTA is a good option for mid-market and larger enterprises, who need multiple authentication options and policies, without compromising user experience.

OneLogin is a Workforce Identity and Access Management platform developed by One Identity. The platform can secure identities for both internal employees and external users. With an extensive app catalog of over 6,000 integrations, OneLogin streamlines the deployment of multi-factor authentication across all enterprise users. OneLogin is a popular authentication platform globally, supporting more than 5,000 customers worldwide.

With OneLogin Workforce Identity, admins can synchronize identity management from multiple directories, including Workday, Active Directory, LDAP, and G Suite to enforce single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, and ‘SmartFactor Authentication’ which provides contextual adaptive authentication to improve account security.

OneLogin also delivers effective user and application management with Identity Lifecycle Management for automated onboarding and offboarding. OneLogin also supports passwordless authentication through OneLogin Desktop, which enables certificate-based authentication for remote employees.

OneLogin also enables secure access to both on-premises and cloud apps via OneLogin Access. This extends cloud-based authentication to applications featuring an LDAP interface through VLDAP and offers secure MFA for network appliances and apps such as WiFi and VPN. OneLogin also secures remote access to on-premises Windows servers and desktops.

Ping Identity is an identity management suite that offers several different identity management features. This includes Single Sign-On, Multi-Factor Authentication and Directory. Ping is distributed via the cloud, providing an identity-as-a-service model as well as a software based solution. Ping has focussed on providing easy integrations for enterprise customers, allowing admins to use APIs, SDKs and integration kits to streamline implementation with existing infrastructure.

Ping uses contextual based adaptive authentication, that provides a better user experience and more effective security controls, without impacting on business productivity. This means that users can choose authentication methods, and admins can be sure a user is who they say they are, with factors checked like geolocation, IP Address and time since last authentication. With Ping, users can even choose to leave passwords behind entirely, with stronger authentication methods like mobile push authentication, QR codes, and other compliant authentication methods.

Customers praise how easy it is to build, secure and maintain application integration using Ping Identity. Customers also say Ping is a reliable and flexible authentication platform that meets compliance needs. End users also report that it’s easy to just log on and have access to all the applications that they need.  Ping is most suitable for larger organizations that need to be able to integrate MFA across all their applications, with flexibility in deployment and adaptive authentication policies.

RSA is an enterprise-focussed multi-factor authentication and access management solution that allows admins to easily enforce risk-driven authentication policies across your organization. It provides a range of authentication methods, including push notifications, biometrics, one time passwords and SMS messages, as well as supporting hardware and software tokens to ensure maximum security for corporate accounts. However, RSA has focussed on convenience for end users.

While supporting legacy hardware and software tokens, RSA makes it easy for companies to move their users to new authentication options, such as mobile authentication options. This makes life easier for employees, meaning that they can easily use their cell phone to authenticate access to on-premise and cloud applications. RSA allows admins to enforce policy driven MFA and Single-Sign On across all of their custom and third party applications, as well as supporting more than 500 cloud and on-premise applications.

RSA is built for larger enterprise, with granular authentication features and policies. Customers praise the choice that users have between using token based authentication, or using the mobile app. Authentication using RSA is not as streamlined as some of the other authentication solutions on this list, but it provides a very high level of security, which customers argue gives them peace of mind, especially when dealing with very sensitive data. RSA is a strong authentication option for enterprises, especially those that need to meet compliance regulations because they deal with private data.

SecureAuth is an identity and access management (IAM) provider that offers a range of IAM solutions to help businesses manage users’ credentials and secure access to user accounts, without compromising the end user’s login experience. Arculix is SecureAuth’s flagship access and authentication platform, which leverages AI-driven behavioral analytics, granular policy configurations, and integrated single sign-on to enable organizations to continuously authenticate their users and maintain a frictionless login process.

Arculix analyzes the context of each login attempt—considering factors such as device health, IP reputation, device location, and historical user behavior—and produces a risk score for the login based on this data. If the login is deemed high risk, Arculix requires that the user verify their identity via one or more further methods. Arculix supports over 30 authentication methods, including passwordless biometric authentication, OTPs and push notifications, to ensure that all users can verify their identities, regardless of what type of device they’re using. Admins can configure granular authentication policies from the management console, as well as generate reports into login activity and account usage for security monitoring and compliance.

Arculix offers on-prem, cloud, and hybrid deployment options and offers full API integrations with a wide range of cloud service providers, web applications, and VPNs for easier set up and configuration. The platform also offers self-service enrolment, password resets, and platform updates for end users, simplifying the onboarding process as well as minimizing help desk tickets log-term. Overall, we recommend SecureAuth Arculix as a robust solution for both SMBs and enterprises looking for flexible, adaptive MFA that’s straightforward to deploy and supports both traditional and passwordless authentication methods