As large-scale data breaches continue to make headlines, developers are putting more thought into regulating access to their applications. Identity management provider Okta Inc. is eager to capitalize on the trend.

The company set out to boost its efforts today by acquiring the team behind Stormpath, a user management service specifically geared towards the developer crowd. The platform takes as little as a few minutes to plug into an application and can then handle all the different aspects of managing user access, starting with the initial onboarding process.

Stormpath makes it possible to pull worker credentials from a company’s internal directory or, if a developer is building a public-facing service, let users register using their social profiles. From there, the service can be used to apply access restrictions to each account based on its specific security requirements. A company’s internal file-sharing service, for instance, could be configured to restrict how much data employees are allowed to download based on their role.

Stormpath doubles as tool for managing requests from other applications and enables developers to authenticate calls in the same place where they handle user access. Based on Okta’s acquisition announcement, that may have been one of the main motivations behind its decision to swoop in. The company introduced a product called API Access Management late last year to help developers handle machine-to-machine communications more securely.

The purchase will see Okta not only absorb the team that developed Stormpath but also gain a license to the underlying technology, which will presumably make it into its product lineup in one form or another further down the line. The company didn’t say how much it paid for deal, but the fact that it raised $24.7 million from private investors before the acquisition would suggest the price tag was likely in the eight-digit range.

Image: Pixabay