Okta acquires cybersecurity startup Spera to plug digital identity leaks

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.

The deal is estimated by Calcalist as being worth between $100 million and $130 million, depending on performance and employee compensation.

Spera provides digital identity threat detection, prevention and response software, and security posture management capabilities as described in a blog post by Okta CPO for Workforce Identity Cloud Arnab Bose. The startup also raised $10 million in seed funding earlier this year.

Bose says identity breaches are the number one vector for attacks against organizations, and cites Verizon’s finding that 86 percent of breaches start with phishing and other attacks on credentials.

Left unsaid, Okta has suffered three data breaches in just over a year, with the latest revealing the names and email addresses of all Okta customer support system users.

The integration of Spera gives Okta users more integrations and greater visibility to find threats and misconfigurations directly within SaaS and infrastructure applications like AWS and Salesforce. It provides ongoing compliance reporting and monitoring, and a broader array of identity threat detection and response capabilities, Okta says.

Further, Okta is planning to build a research and development center the 25 Spera employees based in Israel.

Okta says it has already boosted its phishing resistance and identity threat protection this year with iOS capabilities for its passwordless authenticator FastPass and the launch of Okta AI, and its Privileged Access product reached general availability.

The acquisition is subject to the usual conditions, and is expected to close in during Okta’s first quarter of fiscal 2024, which opens February 1.

Okta also acquired password manager Uno just a few months ago to move further into consumer identity management.

Article Topics

acquisitions  |  biometrics  |  cybersecurity  |  digital identity  |  identity access management (IAM)  |  Okta