Product of the Day
AI impostors hit a login roadblock
A new identity security software product called Specops Secure Onboarding can target impersonation during employee onboarding.
Specops Secure Onboarding, a new identity-security software product designed to reduce risk in the employee onboarding process, is now available. Specops is the identity and access management division of Outpost24, a global cybersecurity company.
The new tool can provide end-user identity verification at key stages of the new-hire process, including first-password creation, account access and service-desk contact. New employees can create their first Active Directory password through a secure enrolment link and verify their identity using biometric liveness detection and a government-issued identity document. Service-desk teams can repeat the verification before completing sensitive requests.
The identity-checking system supports more than 16,000 document types across 254 countries and territories. Specops says no end-user data is stored. Caller verification integrates with ServiceNow, Jira and other IT service management platforms, while each check is recorded for audit purposes.
“Employee onboarding was built for speed, not identity assurance, says the company. “In distributed hiring environments, IT may be asked to provision people it has never met, while temporary passwords, manager handoffs and service-desk requests can all rely on identity being assumed rather than verified. As AI makes voice cloning, deepfakes and phishing attacks easier and cheaper to scale, those long-standing identity gaps are becoming harder to defend.”
The launch comes as identity risk increasingly intersects with hiring and onboarding. The 2026 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report highlights North Korean IT worker schemes that used stolen identities and regionally hosted laptop farms to acquire jobs, estimating that these operations leveraged 15,000 possible stolen identities. Sift reports that AI now assists more than 82% of phishing emails, highlighting the growing role of AI in scalable social engineering.
Darren James, Specops Software senior product manager, says: “For years, organisations could afford to treat onboarding as an administrative process. But the fake-worker schemes highlighted in the Verizon DBIR show why that assumption is becoming harder to defend. Stolen identities, remote hiring processes and AI-enabled impersonation are changing where identity risk begins, which is why verification needs to start with the very first password and continue through high-risk support interactions.”
