Publicly traded cybersecurity provider CyberArk Software Ltd. is shelling out $70 million to buy Idaptive LLC, a firm that offers a platform for managing access to enterprise systems.

CyberArk announced the deal this morning before its first-quarter earnings call. The company, which like Idaptive focuses on helping enterprises manage access to internal systems, beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate with net income of $19.6 million on $106.8 million in revenue.

Idaptive spun out last year from Centrify Inc., a CyberArk competitor owned by Thomas Bravo LLC. Its namesake platform provides multifactor authentication and single-sign-on features that companies use to help employees securely log into applications. Administrators can monitor user activity in visual dashboards to catch potential security issues.

One feature in particular that may have caught CyberArk’s eye is App Gateway, an add-on Idaptive offers for its platform to help remote workers securely access business applications. App Gateway assigns a risk score to each login attempt that it uses to decide whether and under what conditions to grant access. After a login is authorized, the user is only connected to the specific application they need for their work without receiving access to the rest of the corporate network.

App Gateway’s approach is based on a concept known as zero-trust security that has been gaining steam over recent years. The technology aims to replace the traditional virtual network tools traditionally used for remote application access, which are complicated to configure and can slow down the user experience in some cases.

Acquiring Idaptive could put CyberArk in a better position to address the recent shift to remote work and the related rise in demand for cybersecurity tools. The deal also buys the company Idaptive’s customer base of about 500 organizations.

“Together, CyberArk and Idaptive will offer customers a SaaS-delivered, AI-based, security-first approach to managing identities and reducing risk,” CyberArk Chief Executive Officer Udi Mokady (pictured) stated in a blog post. “This will extend our ability to manage and protect identities with various levels of privileges across hybrid and multicloud environments.”

Corey Williams, Idaptive’s vice president of strategy and marketing, appeared on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE last month to discuss the company’s technology. The executive touched upon the increased need for security tools amid the shift to remote working.

“When you take all the workers and disperse them to home, each one of their systems and networks becomes an extension of the attack surface,” Williams said. “We talk with our customers about putting in layers that can balance security but also provide a more friction-free user experience. It reduces the scope from everyone on earth, from any device on earth, to just the people that you trust and have identified.”

Image: CyberArk