Okta (OKTA) Risk Analysis

To remain competitive, we must continue to develop new solutions, applications and enhancements to our existing portfolio. This is particularly true as we further expand and diversify our capabilities. Maintaining adequate research and development resources, such as the appropriate personnel and development technology, to meet the demands of the market is essential. If we elect not to or are unable to develop solutions internally, we may choose to expand into a certain market or strategy via an acquisition for which we could potentially pay too much or fail to successfully integrate into our operations. Further, many of our competitors expend a considerably greater amount of funds on their respective research and development programs, and those that do not have, in some cases, been acquired by larger companies that allocate greater resources to our competitors' research and development programs. Our failure to maintain adequate research and development resources or to compete effectively with the research and development programs of our competitors would give an advantage to such competitors and may harm our business, results of operations and financial condition. Even if we maintain adequate research and development resources, we may be unable to monetize newly developed solutions or features such that we can recoup our research and development expenditures. For example, if we develop a new feature but our competitors give an equivalent feature away for free, we may need to also include our newly developed feature for free as part of an existing product offering to remain competitive in the marketplace. Such a loss of anticipated revenue to offset our research and development expenditures may harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Our agreements with customers and other third parties include provisions under which we agree to indemnify or otherwise be liable to them for losses suffered or incurred as a result of claims of intellectual property infringement, damages caused by us to property or persons, or other liabilities relating to or arising from the use of our platforms or other acts or omissions. From time to time, customers also require us to indemnify or otherwise be liable to them for breach of confidentiality, violation of applicable law, or failure to implement adequate security measures with respect to their data stored, transmitted, or accessed using our platforms. The term of these contractual provisions often survives termination or expiration of the applicable agreement. Although we normally contractually limit our liability with respect to such obligations, the existence of such a dispute may have adverse effects on our customer relationship and reputation and we may still incur substantial liability or large indemnity payments. This could significantly increase our operating expenses, require us to restrict our business activities, and limit our ability to deliver certain solutions, all of which could require significant time, effort and expense, harm our reputation and customer relationships, and negatively affect our business.

Increasingly, companies, including Okta, Inc., are subject to a wide variety of attacks on their systems and networks on an ongoing basis. In addition to threats from traditional computer "hackers," malicious code (such as malware, viruses, worms and ransomware), employee or contractor theft or misuse, password spraying, phishing and denial-of-service attacks, we and our third-party service providers now also face threats from sophisticated nation-state actors and organized crime groups who engage in attacks (including advanced persistent threat intrusions) that add to the risks to our systems (including those hosted on AWS' or other cloud services providers' systems), internal networks, our customers' systems and the information that we and they store and process. For example, like other companies, we have experienced an increase in cybersecurity attacks and have had to expend increasing amounts of human and financial capital to respond. We expect that these cybersecurity attacks will continue and that the scope and sophistication of these efforts will increase in future periods. Despite significant efforts to create security barriers to such threats, it is virtually impossible for us to entirely mitigate these risks. As a provider of independent and neutral cloud-based identity solutions that form a part of our customers' security software supply chain, we pose an attractive target for such attacks. The security measures we have integrated into our internal systems and platforms, which are designed to detect unauthorized activity and prevent or minimize security breaches, may not function as expected and have not in the past been, and may not in the future be, sufficient to protect our internal networks and platforms against certain attacks. In addition, techniques used to sabotage or to obtain unauthorized access to networks in which data is stored or through which data is transmitted change frequently, become more complex over time. As a result, we and our third-party service providers have in the past been, and may in the future be, unable to anticipate these techniques or implement adequate preventative measures quickly enough to prevent either an electronic intrusion into our systems or services or a compromise of customer data, employee data or other protected information. Our customers' use of our technology to access business systems and store data concerning, among others, their employees, contractors, partners and customers is essential to their use of our platforms, which stores, transmits and processes customers' proprietary information and users' personal data experienced and likely will in the future experience attacks targeting such customer data. When such breaches occur, as a result of third-party action, technology limitations, employee or contractor error, malfeasance or otherwise, and if the confidentiality, integrity or availability of our customers' data or systems is disrupted, we could incur significant liability to our customers and to individuals or businesses whose information was being stored by our customers, and our platforms may be perceived as less desirable, which could negatively affect our business and damage our reputation. Techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to, or to sabotage, systems change frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target. As a result, we, our third-party service providers and our customers have not in the past been, and may not in the future be, able to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventive measures. Further, because we do not control our third-party service providers, or the processing of data by our third-party service providers, we cannot ensure the integrity or security of measures they take to protect customer information and prevent data loss. In addition, security breaches impacting our platforms have in certain cases resulted in and could in the future result in a risk of loss or unauthorized disclosure or theft of this information, or the denial of access to this information, which, in turn, could lead to enforcement actions, litigation, regulatory or governmental audits, investigations and possible liability, and increased requests by individuals regarding their personal data. Security breaches could also damage our relationships with and ability to attract customers and partners, and trigger service availability, indemnification and other contractual obligations. For example, our customers have in the past published public criticisms of our security practices in connection with security incidents, and these postings harm our reputation and brand. Security incidents may also cause us to incur significant investigation, mitigation, remediation, notification and other expenses. Furthermore, as a well-known provider of identity and security solutions that form a part of our customers' security software supply chain, any such breach, including a breach of our customers' systems, could compromise systems secured by our solutions, creating system disruptions or slowdowns and exploiting security vulnerabilities of our or our customers' systems, and the information stored on our or our customers' systems could be accessed, publicly disclosed, altered, lost or stolen, which could subject us to liability and cause us financial harm. Our disclosures concerning security incidents also may become the subject of litigation, and our disclosures concerning the January 2022 compromise, for example, have become the subject of lawsuits, as discussed in Item 3, "Legal Proceedings" below. While we have taken a number of remediation steps, there is no guarantee that our preventative and mitigation actions with respect to this incident and others like it will fully eliminate the risk of a malicious compromise of our or our customers' systems. We have experienced cybersecurity incidents resulting from our use of and oversight over third-party service providers and could experience such incidents in the future. These incidents have, in the past, and may, in the future, result from our configuration of such providers' products or from cybersecurity attacks on such providers of the same type that could affect our own systems. While we have implemented security measures and configuration policies that seek to protect data stored with our third-party service providers, such measures and policies have not in the past been, and may not in the future be, sufficient to protect our data or our customers' data. For example, the January 2022 compromise of one of our third-party service providers by a threat actor, even though not material and not a breach of our platforms, nonetheless was widely publicized and focused attention on the security of our systems and the systems of our third-party service providers. In addition, in October 2023, a threat actor gained unauthorized access to and stole information from inside our customer support system, which was hosted by a third-party service provider. While we maintain cybersecurity insurance, our insurance may be insufficient to cover all liabilities incurred in these incidents, and any incidents may result in loss of, or increased costs of, our cybersecurity insurance. These breaches, or any perceived breach, of our systems, our customers' systems, our service providers' systems, or other systems or networks secured by our platforms, whether or not any such breach is due to a vulnerability in our platforms, may also undermine confidence in our platforms or our industry and result in damage to our reputation and brand, negative publicity, loss of ISVs and other channel partners, customers and sales, increased costs to remedy any problem, costly litigation and other liability. In addition, a breach of the security measures of one of our key ISVs or other channel partners or a security software supply chain attack even many levels removed could result in the exfiltration of confidential corporate information or other data that may provide additional avenues of attack. For example, an exploitation in an open source library that is imported and used in another framework that is used by a software product used by Okta, Inc. could introduce an avenue of attack into our platforms. If a high profile security breach occurs with respect to a comparable cloud technology provider, our customers and potential customers may lose trust in the security of the cloud business model generally, which could adversely impact our ability to retain existing customers or attract new ones, potentially causing a negative impact on our business. Any of these negative outcomes could adversely impact market acceptance of our solutions and could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition. Third parties have induced and may continue to fraudulently induce employees, contractors, customers or our customers' users into disclosing sensitive information such as user names, passwords or other information or otherwise compromise the security of our applications, internal networks, electronic systems and/or physical facilities in order to gain access to our data or our customers' data, which could result in significant legal and financial exposure, a loss of confidence in the security of our platforms, interruptions or malfunctions in our operations, account lockouts, and, ultimately, harm to our future business prospects and revenue. We may be required to expend significant capital and financial resources to protect against such threats or to alleviate problems caused by breaches in security.

Errors, failures, vulnerabilities or bugs have, in the past and may, in the future, occur in our solutions, especially when updates are deployed or new solutions are rolled out, maintenance patches are applied, or infrastructure, architectural or configuration changes are made. In the past, such issues have caused outages for our customers. Our platforms are often used in connection with large-scale computing environments with different operating systems, system management software, equipment and networking configurations, which may cause errors or failures of our solutions, or other aspects of the computing environment into which our solutions are deployed. In addition, deployment of our solutions into complicated, large-scale computing environments may expose errors, failures, vulnerabilities or bugs in our solutions. Any such errors, failures, vulnerabilities or bugs may not be found until after they are deployed to our customers. We are committed to increasing our transparency with our customers and the public about our solutions and technology. This transparency, which may be more than is expected of companies in our industry, could lead to us publicly disclosing information that we would not otherwise be legally required to disclose, such as errors, failures, vulnerabilities or bugs in our solutions and technology. As a result, we could experience negative publicity that could harm our business. Any real or perceived errors, failures, vulnerabilities or bugs in our solutions, or delays in or difficulties implementing our solutions, could also result in: loss, compromise, corruption or other unavailability of customer data; disruptions to our solutions or our customers' products, systems, networks, and operations; loss of business and new customers; loss of or delay in market acceptance of our solutions; a decrease in customer satisfaction or adoption rates; loss of competitive position; or claims by customers for losses sustained by them, all of which could harm our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

Our business activities are subject to various restrictions under U.S. export controls and trade and economic sanctions laws, which include prohibitions on the sale or supply of certain products and services to U.S. embargoed or sanctioned countries, governments, persons and entities and also require authorization for the export of encryption items. In addition, various countries regulate the import of certain encryption technology, including through import and licensing requirements, and have enacted laws that could limit our ability to distribute our service or could limit our customers' ability to implement our service in those countries. If we fail to comply with these laws and regulations, we and certain of our employees could be subject to civil or criminal penalties, including the possible loss of export privileges and monetary penalties. Obtaining the necessary authorizations, including any required license, for a particular transaction may be time-consuming, is not guaranteed, and may result in the delay or loss of sales opportunities. Although we take precautions to prevent our solutions from being provided in violation of such laws, our solutions may have been in the past, and could in the future be, provided inadvertently in violation of such laws, despite the precautions we take. This could result in negative consequences to us, including government investigations, penalties and harm to our reputation.

New income, sales, use, value-added or other transaction level taxes, tax laws, statutes, rules, regulations or ordinances could be enacted at any time. Those enactments could adversely impact our domestic and international business operations, and our business and financial performance. Further, existing tax laws, statutes, rules, regulations or ordinances could be interpreted, changed, modified or applied adversely to us. These events could require us or our customers to pay additional tax amounts on a prospective or retroactive basis, as well as require us or our customers to pay fines and/or penalties and interest for past amounts deemed to be due. If we raise our prices to offset the costs of these additional taxes, existing and potential future customers may elect not to purchase our solutions in the future. Additionally, new, changed, modified or newly interpreted or applied tax laws could increase our compliance, operating and other costs, as well as the costs of our solutions to our customers. Further, these events could decrease the capital we have available to operate our business. Any or all of these events could harm our business and financial performance. For example, various legislative and regulatory actions and proposals, such as in the United States, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the EU, have increasingly focused on future tax reform and contemplate changes to long-standing tax principles, which could adversely affect our liquidity and results of operations. As a multinational organization, we may be subject to taxation in certain jurisdictions around the world with increasingly complex tax laws, the application of which can be uncertain. The amount of taxes we pay in these jurisdictions could increase substantially as a result of changes in the applicable tax principles, including increased tax rates, new tax laws or revised interpretations of existing tax laws and precedents, which could harm our liquidity and results of operations. In addition, the authorities in these jurisdictions could review our tax returns and impose additional tax, interest and penalties, and the authorities could claim that various withholding requirements apply to us or our subsidiaries or assert that benefits of tax treaties are not available to us or our subsidiaries, any of which could harm us and our results of operations.

We are subject to global data protection laws and regulations ("Data Protection Laws") that may impact how we do business with customers. Data Protection Laws, such as those applicable in the European Union, Canada and certain of its provinces, United Kingdom, Asia, and certain states in the United States, have enhanced data protection obligations for companies that handle personal data. Obligations include, for example, expanded disclosures about how personal data is to be used, individual rights in relation to personal data, limitations on retention of personal data, mandatory data breach notification requirements and strict obligations on service providers, and restrictions on online marketing and the use of cookies and tracking technologies. In addition, increasing numbers of Data Protection Laws restrict transfers of personal data outside of their country of origin to countries deemed to lack adequate privacy protections. These types of transfers must be supported by a transfer mechanism that we may be required to implement, and in many jurisdictions there is significant legal uncertainty around the validity and sufficiency of data transfer mechanisms, and evolving legal and regulatory expectations could impose additional obligations or require expenditure of additional resources to comply with the Data Protection Laws. Data Protection Laws are rapidly expanding and evolving, and many have extraterritorial effect, which may increase our compliance costs and expose us to greater enforcement risk. In addition, we may be or become subject to data localization laws, which require personal data, or certain subcategories of personal data, to be stored in the jurisdiction of origin. These regulations may deter customers from using cloud-based services such as ours and may inhibit our ability to expand into those markets or prohibit us from continuing to offer services in those markets without significant additional costs. This regulatory environment applicable to the handling of personal data, and our actions taken in response, may cause us to assume additional liabilities or incur additional costs and could result in our business, results of operations and financial condition being harmed. We and our customers may face a risk of enforcement actions by an increasing number of global data protection authorities in countries where data protection laws apply to us and with which we may not be able to comply. Any such enforcement actions could result in substantial costs and diversion of resources, distract management and technical personnel and negatively affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. Non-compliance with these obligations can trigger significant fines and other penalties. Regulatory bodies can also issue orders to cease or change data processing, enforcement notices and/or assessment notices (for a compulsory audit), and civil claims (including class actions) for compensation or damages. In addition to fines, some U.S. states allow a private right of action. Given the breadth and depth of changes in data protection obligations, complying with these requirements has caused us to expend significant resources, which is likely to continue into the near future as we respond to new interpretations and enforcement actions. In addition, new laws are continually being passed and new case law and regulatory guidance means Data Protection Laws are constantly evolving. For example, India recently passed a comprehensive data protection law that will apply new privacy rules for the first time in that country. In addition, the number of U.S. states with comprehensive Data Protection Laws significantly increased in 2024. We cannot yet determine the impact that such future laws, regulations and standards may have on our business. Such laws and regulations are often subject to differing interpretations and may be inconsistent among jurisdictions. We could incur substantial expense in complying with any new obligations, be required to make significant changes to our business operations or to the development of new or existing solutions, and we may not be able to comply with some of these regulatory developments, all of which may adversely affect our revenues and our business overall.

We plan our expenses based on certain assumptions about the length and variability of our sales cycle. These assumptions are based upon historical trends for sales cycles and conversion rates associated with our existing customers. We are increasingly focused on sales to larger organizations, which often involve lengthy purchasing approval processes and less predictable sales cycles. The length of sales cycles may be further impacted by the current macroeconomic environment and by the discretionary nature of customer spending. Customers may also take prolonged evaluation periods of our platforms, or their features or functionality, and those of our competitors. As a result, it is difficult to predict exactly when, or even if, we will make a sale. If we are unable to close one or more of expected significant transactions in a particular period, or if such an expected transaction is delayed until a subsequent period, our results of operations for that period, and for any future periods in which revenue from such transaction would otherwise have been recognized, may be harmed.

Our customers' storage and use of data concerning, among others, their employees, contractors, partners and customers is essential to their use of our platforms. We have implemented various features intended to enable our customers to better comply with applicable privacy and security requirements in their collection and use of data within our online service, but these features have, in the past, not ensured and may, in the future, not ensure our customers' compliance and may not be effective against all potential privacy or related regulatory concerns. Many jurisdictions have enacted or are considering enacting or revising privacy and/or data security legislation, including laws and regulations applying to the collection, use, storage, transfer, disclosure and/or processing of personal data. The costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, such laws and regulations that are applicable to the operations of our customers may limit the use and adoption of our service and reduce overall demand for it. These privacy and data security related laws and regulations are evolving and may result in increasing regulatory and public scrutiny and escalating levels of enforcement and sanctions. In addition, we are subject to certain contractual obligations regarding the collection, use, storage, transfer, disclosure and/or processing of personal data. Although we are working to comply with those federal, state and foreign laws and regulations, industry standards, contractual obligations and other legal obligations that apply to us, those laws, regulations, standards and obligations are evolving and may be modified, interpreted and applied in an inconsistent manner from one jurisdiction to another, and may conflict with one another, other requirements or legal obligations, our practices or the features of our platforms. We also expect that there will continue to be new proposed laws, regulations, self-regulatory and industry standards concerning privacy, data protection, digital services, and information security in the United States, China, the European Union, India and other jurisdictions, and we cannot yet determine the impact such future laws, regulations and standards may have on our business. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission and state regulators enforce a variety of data privacy issues, such as promises made in privacy policies or failures to appropriately protect information about individuals, as unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce in violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act or similar state laws. On the U.S. state level, over a dozen states have adopted new or modified privacy and security laws. These laws create a patchwork of legislation and regulation that impose heightened transparency obligations about data collection, use, and sharing practices, add restrictions on the "sale" or "sharing" or transfer of personal information to third parties for purposes such as advertising or analytics, create new data privacy rights for consumers including the ability to limit the use of personal information for advertising, and carry significant enforcement penalties for non-compliance, including monetary and injunctive relief. This patchwork may also give rise to conflicts or differing views of personal privacy rights. For example, certain state laws may be more stringent or broader in scope, or offer greater individual rights, with respect to personal data than federal, international or other state laws, and such laws may differ from each other, all of which may complicate compliance efforts. We may expend significant resources attempting to comply with conflicting and overlapping state privacy regulations, and the cost and complexity of complying with such regulations could adversely affect our business or increase our potential liability if we fail to comply. This influx of state privacy regimes indicates a trend toward more stringent privacy legislation in the United States, including a potential federal privacy law, which could also increase our potential liability and adversely affect our business. In Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (the "GDPR") imposes a strict data protection compliance regime in relation to the collection and processing of personal data, and various European and other foreign laws also restrict the use of cookies, tracking technologies, and certain marketing activities. Future laws, regulations, standards and other obligations, and changes in the interpretation of existing laws, regulations, standards and other obligations could impair our or our customers' ability to collect, use or disclose information relating to consumers, which could decrease demand for our applications, restrict our business operations, or increase our costs and impair our ability to maintain and grow our customer base and increase our revenue. Such laws and regulations may require companies to implement privacy and security policies, permit users to exercise various data rights, inform individuals of security breaches that affect their personal data, and, in some cases, obtain individuals' consent to use personal data for certain purposes. If we, or the third parties on which we rely, fail to comply with federal, state and international data privacy laws and regulations our ability to successfully operate our business and pursue our business goals could be harmed. Additionally, plaintiffs have become increasingly more active in bringing privacy-related claims against companies. Some of these claims allow for the recovery of statutory damages on a per violation basis, and, if viable, carry the potential for significant statutory damages, depending on the volume of data and the number of violations. With respect to cybersecurity in the United States, the development of rules and guidance pursuant to various executive orders may apply to us, including, for example, pursuant to Executive Order 14028 for "critical software." While the rules and guidance coming from the Order are still being developed, we are likely to be categorized as a provider of critical software, which may increase our compliance costs and delay or prevent our ability to execute contracts with customers, including in particular with government entities. Any failure or perceived failure by us or our third-party service providers to comply with federal, state or foreign laws or regulations, industry standards, contractual obligations or other legal obligations, compliance frameworks with which Okta, Inc. has contractually committed to comply, or any actual or suspected privacy or security incident, even if unfounded, whether or not resulting in unauthorized access to, or acquisition, release or transfer of personal data or other data, may result in investigations and enforcement actions and prosecutions, private litigation (including class action lawsuits), fines, penalties and censure, claims for damages by customers and other affected individuals, or adverse publicity and could cause our customers to lose trust in us, which could have an adverse effect on our reputation and business. We publicly post our privacy policies and practices concerning our processing, use and disclosure of the personal data provided to us by our website visitors and by our customers, and other individuals with whom we interact. Our publication of our privacy policies and other statements we publish that provide promises and assurances about privacy and security can subject us to potential state and federal action if they are found to be unfair, deceptive, or misrepresentative of our practices. If our platforms are perceived to cause, or are otherwise unfavorably associated with, violations of privacy or data security requirements, it may subject us or our customers to public criticism and potential legal liability. Existing and potential privacy laws and regulations concerning privacy and data security and increasing sensitivity of consumers to unauthorized processing of personal data may create negative public reactions to technologies, solutions and services such as ours. Public concerns regarding personal data processing, privacy and security may cause some of our customers' end users to be less likely to visit their websites or otherwise interact with them. If enough end users choose not to visit our customers' websites or otherwise interact with them, our customers could stop using our platforms. This, in turn, may reduce the value of our service, and slow or eliminate the growth of our business, or cause our business to contract. Privacy is a key issue for Okta, Inc. and for our customers. We have attained multiple privacy certifications, such as the Privacy Recognition for Processors, and the European Union Cloud Code of Conduct, Level 2. If we fail to maintain our privacy certifications, or if we fail to seek expansion of their applicability to acquired and/or newly-developed solutions, we may fail to meet our contractual commitments and we may fail to retain our existing customers or attract new customers, and our business, results of operations and financial condition could suffer.