Descope Named Multifactor Solution of the Year
The identity platform earned the industry award after demonstrating significant reductions in authentication support tickets.
Updated on Oct. 9, 2026 in Cybersecurity
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The CyberSecurity Breakthrough Awards program has recognized Descope as the Multifactor Solution of the Year. The platform provides identity management for customers and AI agents, currently serving more than 1,000 organizations.
Why it matters
The recognition highlights the shift toward integrating risk-based signals, such as bot detection and device trust, into authentication workflows to improve security while reducing friction. It reflects the ongoing industry effort to move beyond basic credentials toward more secure, automated identity verification.
Descope integrates native risk signals, including VPN detection, bot scores, and device trust metrics, into its authentication stack. Performance data shows a 50% reduction in authentication support tickets for Branch Insurance via passkeys, compared to prior methods.
The players
Descope
A Los Altos-based identity platform that provides authentication services for customer-facing applications and AI agents.
Branch Insurance
An insurance company that leveraged Descope passkeys to achieve a 50% reduction in authentication support volume.
CyberSecurity Breakthrough
An industry awards program currently in its 10th year of recognizing innovation in the information security sector.
The details
Descope allows engineering teams to implement security controls using a visual workflow editor, replacing legacy manual configurations. The system supports step-up authentication—a process requiring additional identity verification when a user triggers high-risk actions—through Client-Initiated Backchannel Authentication, an extension of the OpenID Connect protocol used to authenticate agents without direct user interaction. It further supports passkeys, magic links, and authenticator applications to reduce reliance on passwords.
Timeline
Descope surveyed 400 IAM decision-makers for an identity report in 2025.
Descope received the industry award on October 8, 2026.
The Tech Race
The industry remains fragmented, with only 10% of organizations achieving MFA coverage across all applications despite 94% offering partial implementation. Descope is competing to bridge this gap by lowering the technical barrier for adopting modern standards like passkeys.
Organizations deploying this identity stack can expect a reduction in manual support requests related to login issues. For end users, this shift manifests as broader support for passwordless options like passkeys, which reduce the likelihood of credential-based account compromise.
The takeaway
The move toward universal MFA coverage is currently stalled at 10% for full application suites, signaling that ease of integration remains the primary hurdle for security teams. Organizations should watch for the next industry standard updates regarding passkey interoperability as a benchmark for platform maturity.
Further reading
For broader trends in identity security, explore our Cybersecurity section.
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Do you find the security provided by multifactor authentication worth the extra steps to log in?
