Okta has struck a deal to acquire Israeli cybersecurity startup Spera Security to integrate its end-to-end protection of digital identity attack surface and risk reduction technology with its beleaguered identity and access management platform.
Okta has struck a deal to acquire the Israeli cybersecurity startup Spera Security, aiming to enhance its digital identity protection and reduce risks within its identity and access management platform.
The deal, valued between $100 million and $130 million by Calcalist, hinges on performance and employee compensation.
Spera offers threat detection, prevention, and response software for digital identities, alongside security posture management capabilities, detailed in a blog post by Okta's Arnab Bose, CPO for Workforce Identity Cloud. The startup secured $10 million in seed funding earlier this year.
Bose highlights identity breaches as the leading attack vector for organisations, citing Verizon's report that 86 percent of breaches originate from phishing and credential attacks.
Despite Okta's recent data breaches, including exposure of customer support users' names and email addresses, the integration of Spera aims to provide Okta users with enhanced integrations and visibility to detect threats within SaaS and infrastructure applications such as AWS and Salesforce. This integration offers continuous compliance reporting, monitoring, and a broader range of identity threat detection and response capabilities.
Okta plans to establish a research and development centre for the 25 Spera employees in Israel.
The company has already bolstered phishing resistance and identity threat protection with iOS capabilities in its passwordless authenticator FastPass, introduced Okta AI, and witnessed the general availability of its Privileged Access product this year.
Subject to standard conditions, the acquisition is anticipated to conclude in Okta's first quarter of fiscal 2024, commencing on February 1.
This acquisition follows Okta's recent move into consumer identity management with the purchase of password manager Uno a few months ago.
