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Product & Engineering

10 Reasons Universal Prompt Strengthens Security and Improves User Experience

Earlier this year, Duo Security announced the General Availability of the Duo Universal Prompt, and many customers have happily upgraded to it from the Duo Traditional Prompt. For our customers who have not yet migrated, we would like you to be aware of these 10 reasons Universal Prompt gives Duo customers heightened security and a better user experience!

From: Traditional Prompt
To: Universal Prompt

What is the Duo Universal Prompt?

The Universal Prompt is Duo's next-generation authentication experience that delivers an easier, more secure, and more accessible authentication experience for every user.

Upgrading to Universal Prompt helps organizations:

  • Modernize authentication – Universal Prompt paves the way for customers to modernize their infrastructure and benefit from latest technologies. For example, updating corporate applications to use SAML and WebAuthn for authentication mitigates vulnerability posed by legacy protocols (RADIUS, LDAP) and weak authentication factors such as one-time passcodes. This also helps organizations get started on a journey towards a passwordless future.

  • Strengthen security – Bad actors continue to develop more sophisticated means of social engineering attacks to bypass security controls. Universal Prompt minimizes the risks they pose by enabling Duo customers to implement advanced security measures, such as Verified Duo Push and Risk-Based Authentication.

  • Simplify secure access – The move to modernizing and strengthening your IT security infrastructure can be disruptive for end users, but Universal Prompt minimizes user friction with a simple authentication experience, intuitive web-based design, and self-service empowerment.

10 reasons to move to Duo Universal Prompt

All the following great functionality is ONLY available using the Duo Universal Prompt, and we will continue to rapidly deliver new functionality that will be built on Universal Prompt only.

  1. Verified Duo Push – Asks users to verify push requests in order to mitigate the risk of push harassment attacks

  2. Risk-Based Authentication – This reduces user friction and improves security by analyzing risk signals and automatically stepping-up authentication only when necessary

  3. Built-In Security - Universal Prompt utilizes OpenID Connect and moves away from using iFrames, which eliminates the need for additional security configurations (allowed hostnames) that is recommended with the Traditional Prompt    

  4. Self-Service Portal – Admins can securely enable the new Duo hosted Self-service portal by enforcing policies and requiring strong authentication, empowering users to self-enroll and manage their authentication devices

  5. Improved User Experience – Universal Prompt is a major redesign with new styling and workflow-based authentication experience

  6. Localization – Includes support for 15 languages, with more to come

  7. Customization and Branding – Allows admins to give users a familiar and trusted experience

  8. Chromebook – Supports WebAuthn flows for Chromebook logins

  9. Accessibility – Makes strong authentication inclusive and easy for every user. Universal Prompt is designed and tested to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at the AA level

  10. Last-Used Authentication Method – Duo recalls the last-used auth method which gives users one less decision to make and expedites the login workflow

How can you update your environment to the new Universal Prompt?

Most on-premises applications require administrators to install a software update with the necessary changes to support the Universal Prompt on their web application servers. This software update may be supplied by Duo or by our technology partners, depending on who developed the integration. Cloud-hosted software as a service (SaaS) may require limited account changes. Read more in the Universal Prompt Update Guide.

Try out the Universal Prompt now!

Now is a great time to upgrade from Duo Traditional Prompt to Duo Universal Prompt. Your users will have a much better experience behind a better, more efficient design, along with a variety of experience focused features.

Also, admins will be able to better secure their environments with the rich set of security functionality that Universal Prompt enables. Get your plans started ASAP to benefit from the new functionality only available with Universal Prompt!

Get to know Duo Universal Prompt

For more information on Duo Universal Prompt see how in may be utilized in the Duo Guide to Two-Factor Authentication or for specifics on its implementation see documentation on in the Duo Universal Prompt Update Guide.