Cloudflare launches Precursor bot management engine

A new survey from Yubico and Okta found that 43% of cybersecurity and IT professionals still rely on passwords at work even though most know passkeys are more secure. The annual 2026 Global State of Authentication report, conducted by Talker Research, surveyed nearly 2,000 cybersecurity and IT professionals across nine countries, and found that 52% inherited passwords on their first day, establishing legacy onboarding defaults that dictate long-term security habits. The survey also found that 44% suffered an AI-driven attack in the last 12 months, with Singapore experiencing the highest rate globally at 58%, compared with Japan at 30% and Germany at 38%, while 39% of security professionals failed to distinguish AI-generated text from human writing. India at 68%, Australia at 60%, and the U.S. at 56% showed the highest proportion of workers very familiar with passkeys, yet 50% of U.S. security pros still use passwords at work, leading all surveyed markets in legacy password dependency. Yubico and Okta said they are partnering to streamline how enterprise identity systems issue, manage, and enforce hardware-backed credentials, embedding phishing resistance into modern access management platforms to help IT teams eliminate password dependencies without adding operational friction.

Socure has launched U.S. mobile driver's license verification within DocV, its identity verification product, allowing organizations to cryptographically verify mDLs against the issuing state authority when presented from Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet during remote onboarding and step-up flows. The launch follows a September 8, 2026 joint FAQ from FinCEN, the Federal Reserve Board, the FDIC, the OCC and the NCUA confirming that an unexpired, government-issued verifiable digital credential can qualify as documentary evidence under the Customer Identification Program Rule, provided the institution has the technology to extract the required information and still forms a reasonable belief of the customer's true identity. ABI Research projects the U.S. mDL install base will grow from 21.7 million in 2025 to 143 million by 2030, with 40 states issuing digital licenses; today 21 states issue mDLs conforming to the ISO/IEC 18013-5 standard, more than 8 million credentials are active, and roughly 45% of Americans live where one is available. Socure said mDL verification complements its physical document capture rather than replacing it, and that its DocV now supports remote presentation under Part 7 of the ISO standard from Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet, addressing the higher-risk remote verifications that have been supported unevenly across wallets. The announcement comes alongside an extension of Socure's partnership with Xcelerate Solutions to support public sector use cases under the Login.gov Next Generation Identity Proofing Blanket Purchase Agreement, operating within Socure's FedRAMP Moderate environment.

Morgan Stanley raised its price target on Okta to $245 from $200 while keeping an Overweight rating, sending the cybersecurity company's shares up 1% in morning trading Tuesday. Analyst Meta Marshall cited potential growth tied to the expanding use of artificial intelligence agents, following Okta's investor event earlier this month where investors assessed the company's prospects in agentic identity. Marshall said investor interest has been broadening beyond larger cybersecurity companies such as Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike, with Okta and Fortinet increasingly part of those discussions, while SentinelOne and SailPoint are considered in some cases. She expects the benefits from agentic identity to develop gradually for Okta, and pointed to work on technical debt as a factor that could support progress this year. Marshall maintained that the company has additional room to expand as AI-agent adoption develops.

Aembit announced support for Okta's Cross App Access protocol to manage enterprise AI agent access, and revealed that Helen Riley, an executive at Alphabet's X, is joining its board of directors. The XAA integration is intended to streamline authorization and oversight for automated agent workflows used by corporate customers. The XAA integration and Helen Riley's board role are only part of the broader story around Okta's identity platform, and Simply Wall St flagged one warning sign for Okta. Okta positions itself as an identity partner for enterprises that want a single control point governing how humans and software agents reach critical systems, so moves around Cross App Access plug directly into how the firm aims to sit between corporate users, AI tools, and cloud infrastructure. The article points toward a $122 fair value for Okta.