Access Management

Okta to Acquire Spera Security

Okta Says Acquisition Will Expand Its Ability to Detect High-Risk Accounts
Okta to Acquire Spera Security

Identity provider giant Okta finalized an agreement to acquire Spera Security, saying the purchase will expand its ability to track risky accounts and access misconfigurations.

See Also: 5 Reasons to Ditch Passwords & Make Your Employees (and IT) Happier

The publicly traded San Francisco company did not disclose terms of the acquisition. Calcalist reported the deal is worth between $100 million and $130 million. Okta has a market cap of approximately $14 billion. Trading was up nearly 3% since the Tuesday market open.

Spera, a Tel Aviv startup, touts itself as a tool for giving security teams "real-time visibility into their entire identity surface." Administrators can use it to identify accounts excluded from multifactor authentication or single-sign on. Its capabilities work in a central identity provider and also in software-as-a-service applications and third-party cloud infrastructure, Okta says.

"Together with Okta, I'm confident we can transform the cybersecurity landscape and fulfill our mission to prevent identity-driven breaches," wrote co-founder Dor Fledel on LinkedIn. Most breaches have an identity component, the Okta release states, citing a finding from the most recent annual Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report that says 86% of breaches stem from phishing attacks and other forms of credential abuse.

Founded by Fledel and Ariel Kadyshevitch, Spera received $10 million in seed funding in March. The funding was led by YL Ventures and included participation from Google, Palo Alto Networks and Akamai.

"Spera Security did an excellent job addressing a significant gap when it comes to protection against #identity-based #cyberattacks, in a field that has become one of the most sought-after sectors in #cybersecurity," wrote Yoav Leitersdorf, YL Ventures' managing partner, on LinkedIn.

The acquisition comes just months after Okta purchased password manager Uno (see: Okta Buys Personal Password Manager Uno to Service Consumers).

The company announced a 90-day pause on product development and internal projects in late November in an effort to beef up security architecture and operations for applications, hardware and third-party vendors. The move came after it had disclosed that the attacker behind a September data breach stole details pertaining to all users of its primary customer support system, including a list of customer support system usernames and contact details (see: Okta Delays New Products, Projects 90 Days to Boost Security).


About the Author

David Perera

David Perera

Editorial Director, News, ISMG

Perera is editorial director for news at Information Security Media Group. He previously covered privacy and data security for outlets including MLex and Politico.




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