Alpha Serve Blog
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Strategic Partnership: Alpha Serve + Nitrokey

Published: March 09, 2020

Updated: August 24, 2022

Chief Executive Officer in Alpha Serve
This article will be especially interesting to companies that are serious about data security and the prevention of information breaches. The dynamics of cybercrime growth is threatening. No one can feel safe and it doesn't depend on the company size. Both small businesses and big corporations can become targets of hacker attacks.

In most cases, an offender doesn't even need to invent any cunning schemes. Oftentimes, the negligence of employees is enough to result in a serious data breach. Some people are too lazy to change passwords each month, some leave the unlocked gadgets unattended, some even lose them.

Wise business owners address most of these problems with the help of two-factor authentication. It adds an extra layer of security to your data. 2FA assumes that a password is not enough to enter the system. A user needs the second factor to get access. It may be a token (hardware or software), SMS, push notification, etc.
As you know, Alpha Serve offers efficient 2FA solutions for key software platforms web development teams use - Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, Bamboo, and Crowd. These are our U2F & TOTP plugins.

Being developers ourselves, Alpha Serve understands the necessity of customer project data protection. Back in the days, we required U2F tokens as a second security factor for Jira ourselves but there were no suitable options in the Atlassian marketplace at the moment. So, we decided to develop our own plugin and introduce it to the Marketplace.

To make the two-factor authentication system work you need not only software but the hardware (secure key) as the second factor. Here we approach the topic of this article. The idea was to create additional value for customers and to offer a complex solution for secure authentication. Like a one-stop-shop, you come to get a 2FA and look no further acquiring both software and hardware.

As we don't produce hardware, the best thing is to partner with a niche leader to provide customers with a kind of all-inclusive service. That was the reason for our strategic partnership with Nitrokey.
Let us tell you a little about Nitrokey. Then we will pass to the most important part of this news post, the benefits of this strategic partnership for our respected customers.

The company was founded in 2005 in Berlin, Germany. Today, Nitrokey is a globally-recognized developer of IT security hardware to encrypt data, manage the keys and authenticate users. They serve thousands of users worldwide. Company customers include well-known enterprises as well.

The guys have a cool mission. They are here to develop the best physical "latch keys" to comprehensively secure your digital life. Whether you need a solution for two-factor authentication, encrypted data storage, email encryption, key management or server administration, they offer a portfolio with a bunch of options to protect enterprise and personal digital. Their goal is to deliver the best open source security key on the market.

"We see mutual benefits for both companies as in fact these are complementary products (software + hardware) for the same user audience." - says Anna Odrinskaya, Chief Strategy Officer at Alpha Serve.

Benefits for Our Customers

Well, the strategic partnership of Alpha Serve and Nitrokey is great but what's there for our customers?

Alpha Serve customers get special conditions for devices purchase. For example, you purchase a license for any of our 2FA products and get a discount for U2F devices from Nitrokey.

If you're interested in passwordless authentication for your Jira instance (as well as Confluence, Bamboo or Bitbucket), our WebAuthn apps are already available at the Marketplace. They allow to use biometrics or FIDO2 hardware keys as credentials. Nitrokey has high-quality FIDO2 devices in their portfolio, and the special purchasing offer will be considered upon your request.

What's more, customers that prefer to try before they buy, have a wonderful possibility to get the maximum from their trial period of Alpha Serve security plugins. You can get a promo code from Alpha Serve allowing you to order a Nitrokey trial device from you are planning to use as a second authentication factor.

It works like this. You apply for the Alpha Serve 2FA/WebAuthn addon trial, contact us to get your promo code, go to Nitrokey online store to choose the device and use both hardware and software for free for a month. After the 30-day trial period, you can either return the key or purchase it if you enjoyed the tandem.