5 Reasons Why It Makes Sense to Step Up to Duo Advantage
Stepping up to a better, more feature-rich product or service can seem challenging. In the end though, it’s worth the effort, especially when it addresses areas of need. For example, my TV is 14 years old. Although the picture quality is still excellent and there are some decent capabilities I can use, it’s missing many of today’s modern features that deliver a much better viewing experience than what I have now. So, I’ve got a plan to a get a new model that offers the advanced features I want, and frankly need. And yeah, I’m pretty excited. Figuring out how to set up and use some of the advanced features will be challenging, but I’m up for it. I can see the benefits and the value.
More features, more value with Duo Advantage Edition
For organizations on the Duo Essentials edition, stepping up to Duo Advantage edition offers a slew of modern identity security and user experience features that add value to their Duo investment. Let’s take a look:
Cisco Identity Intelligence (CII) — One half of Duo’s Continuous Identity Security solution, Cisco Identity Intelligence adds a powerful security layer for any identity infrastructure. CII addresses organizations’ need for comprehensive visibility into multi-vendor identity sources and high-fidelity threat protection. It also reduces coverage gaps by providing a broad range of MFA options for all your use cases plus added security layers using device trust and risk-based policies.
Duo Passport — The other half of Continuous Identity Security, Passport enables organizations to provide their workforce with an exceptional user experience by dramatically reducing the number of times users are asked to authenticate. After logging in and authenticating just once on a trusted device, users get uninterrupted access to permitted applications across browsers and thick clients, minimizing repeated authentication requests throughout their workday and increasing productivity.
Device Health Checks — Allowing a device that’s running outdated software — like an operating system, browser or plug-in — to access your network is risky. Duo Desktop, Duo’s native client application for macOS, Windows and Linux endpoints, removes that risk by assessing an endpoint’s health posture at the point of authentication to make sure it complies with your access security policy. Devices that fail a health check are blocked from accessing an application. Fortunately, Duo provides guided self-remediation with step-by-step instructions to help end-users bring a device that fails a security check back into compliance without the need to contact IT so they can immediately access the application from the newly compliant device.
Risk-based Authentication — If you have a mobile workforce or you like to work from a different location every now and then, Risk-based Authentication evaluates risk signals such as location at the time of login and then adjusts the authentication requirements based on risk level. If the risk is low and trust is high, the user can complete a basic Duo Push. However, if trust is low, the user is asked to step up to a more secure authentication method like a Verified Duo Push or passwordless authentication to re-establish trust.
Trust Monitor — If you’ve ever had to sort through mountains of log data to identify anomalous access events that could be threats to your network, you know it’s tedious and time-consuming. Trust Monitor does the work for you by sorting through your organization’s authentication logs and surfacing unusual access and device registration attempts, enabling you to detect and remediate compromised accounts proactively.
More Reasons — I know I said there were five reasons, but I’ll add in a bonus round. Stepping up to Duo Advantage also unlocks more of what you get with Duo Essentials — more adaptive access policies, more customizable reports and more insight into devices connecting to your network. In other words, Duo Advantage “Goes to 11.”
Making the move to Duo Advantage
Moving from Duo Essentials to Duo Advantage might seem like a big step up, but for those that do, the benefits are many. Everything I discussed earlier is included in a Duo Advantage subscription. And when it comes to configuring these features, you don’t need to go it alone. Duo Care Premium Support provides customers with the opportunity to work directly with a dedicated Customer Service team to roll out their Advantage deployment.
If you’re interested in test driving the features in Duo Advantage, contact your local Duo reseller or managed service provider (MSP). You can also sign up for a Free Trial which includes 30 days of Duo Advantage edition.
In addition, we encourage you to see what your peers are saying about Duo. You can read customer reviews on sites such as TrustRadius, which just announced Duo as a Buyer's Trust Award winner in the Authentication category for 2025.