Jens Langhammer
- Wrote the first commit of authentik in November 2018 as a personal project
- Built it into a full open-source identity provider and founded a company around it in 2022
Bio
Jens Langhammer started authentik in Hamburg in November 2018 as a personal project and grew it into a self-hosted identity provider covering single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, provisioning, and access control. Authentik Security, the public benefit company built around it, followed in 2022.
Profile built from public project and company records.
Where their work shows up
authentik's distinguishing idea is the configurable flow: login, enrollment, recovery, and consent are stages a deployment composes rather than fixed screens, which is what homelabs and enterprises both end up needing for different reasons. It is one of the few projects that made the jump from one person's side project to production infrastructure for organizations that could have bought a commercial product. See the authentik profile and the open-source identity vendors.
Related on Start with Identity
- CVEFortiCloud SSO SAML bypass on FortiOS, FortiProxy, FortiSwitchManager
A crafted SAML message bypasses FortiCloud SSO (CWE-347). Arctic Wolf saw malicious logins three days after disclosure. CISA added it to KEV on 16 December 2025
- CVEFortinet administrative FortiCloud SSO authentication bypass across accounts
An attacker with their own FortiCloud account and registered device could log in as admin to other customers' Fortinet devices with FortiCloud SSO enabled. CWE-
- CVEFortiWeb FortiCloud SSO SAML bypass
The FortiWeb twin of CVE-2025-59718. A crafted SAML message bypasses FortiCloud SSO on FortiWeb. Same CWE-347 class, same December 2025 window, same 'patch or d
- GlossaryIdentity as a Service (IDaaS)
Identity as a Service (IDaaS) is identity and access management delivered from the cloud as a subscription: the provider runs the directory, single sign-on, MFA
- GlossaryIdentity Federation
A trust relationship between identity providers and service providers that lets users authenticate once at their home IdP and access applications at the other p
- GlossaryIdentity Provider (IdP)
A system that authenticates users and issues assertions or tokens vouching for their identity to other applications. In federated single sign-on, the identity p