Palo Alto Networks has placed securing agentic artificial intelligence (AI) front and centre as it lines up a $25bn (£18.8bn) acquisition of identity security specialist CyberArk, marking its “formal entry” into the identity security space as it extends a multi-platform strategy.
Palo Alto said the combination of CyberArk’s identity and privileged access management (PAM) expertise into its AI-backed cyber platform would extend identity protection across the board, protecting not merely humans and machines, but also autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agents.
“Our market entry strategy has always been to enter categories at their inflection point, and we believe that moment for identity security is now,” said Palo Alto’s chairman and CEO Nikesh Arora.
“This strategy has guided our evolution from a next-gen firewall company into a multi-platform cyber security leader,” he said. “Today, the rise of AI and the explosion of machine identities have made it clear that the future of security must be built on the vision that every identity requires the right level of privilege controls, not the ‘IAM fallacy’.
“CyberArk is the definitive leader in identity security with durable, foundational technology that is essential for securing the AI era,” said Arora.
CyberArk founder and executive chairman Udi Mokady hailed a “profound moment” in the firm’s journey.
“From the beginning, we set out to protect the world’s most critical assets, with a relentless focus on innovation, trust and security,” he said. “Joining forces with Palo Alto Networks is a powerful next chapter, built on shared values and a deep commitment to solving the toughest identity challenges. Together, we’ll bring unmatched expertise across human and machine identities, privileged access and AI-driven innovation to secure what’s next.”
Convergence
The acquisition rests on the premise that accounting for the widening spread of identities – meaning AI agents and workloads – will become an increasingly critical challenge for security teams in the near future.
The two firms believe marrying their offerings will enhance and accelerate a new kind of combined cyber platform – a single solution to eliminate security gaps and simplify operations. They also hope to disrupt the legacy identity and access management (IAM) market, and as noted, address the gathering security concerns around agentic AI.
“This machine identity move is significant, as it both ties into the agentic AI trend that Palo Alto is embracing and driving and there are an order of magnitude more machine identities than human identities,” Gartner vice-president analyst Charlie Winckless told Computer Weekly.
“[The acquisition] also supports Palo’s efforts to grow their security platform and aligns with their message, especially if they tie machine identity to agentic AI systems that will require delegated identities, rather than just inheriting the permissions and identity of the human initiator,” he said.
‘Different animal’
Palo Alto Networks has long been an acquisitive company – more so since Arora took the reins back in 2018 – but typically, its buying habits have focused more on startups that enhance existing lines of business or fill in gaps in its platforms, said Winckless.
The CyberArk acquisition stands out because it represents a large move into a different market, and opens up considerable horizontal growth to accelerate Palo Alto’s earnings.
“CyberArk is a different animal, and comes with a different price tag and different expectations,” said Winckless.
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