Palo Alto Networks to Acquire Cyvera

Second Cybersecurity Acquisition for Company This Year
Palo Alto Networks to Acquire Cyvera

Network security company Palo Alto Networks has announced it will acquire the Israeli-based cybersecurity firm Cyvera for approximately $200 million.

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Palo Alto Networks, headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., is a publicly traded company with more than 1,300 employees worldwide. Cyvera is a privately held company with 55 employees that offers an enterprise security platform that blocks zero-day attacks at the endpoint.

In early January, Palo Alto Networks acquired Morta Security, a Silicon Valley-based cybersecurity company with experience in protecting national infrastructure and technology that enhances threat detection and prevention. Financial terms of that acquisition were not disclosed.

The news of Palo Alto Networks' pending acquisition of Cyvera is the latest in a flurry of cybersecurity vendor consolidation activity this year. Barry Jaber, a director for PricewaterhouseCoopers' strategy consulting practice and author of a recent report on mergers and acquisitions in the global cybersecurity industry, says consolidation is natural in maturing industries.

"Cybersecurity mergers and acquisitions have been growing, both in terms of deal volume and value," Jaber says. "2014 has seen a strong start for deals ... announced already. This strong deal flow will likely continue for some time as the market is still fragmented."

Acquiring companies often have different agendas, Jaber says. "Networking equipment companies have been acquiring security technology to round out their product portfolios," he says. "On the other hand, private equity has been very active and is investing because of the high growth potential in cybersecurity. The capital they invest is positive in supporting the industry."

Palo Alto Networks says it expects to close the Cyvera acquisition during the second half of fiscal 2014.

"This event marks a key milestone in our strategic enterprise security vision," says Mark McLaughlin, president and CEO of Palo Alto Networks. "It extends our next-generation security platform with a very innovative approach to preventing attacks on the endpoint."

Cybersecurity Consolidation Activity

Earlier this year, breach detection provider FireEye acquired incident response and remediation services company Mandiant for $1 billion in stock and cash.

On Feb. 13, advanced threat protection provider Bit9 announced it merged with Carbon Black, which sells an endpoint sensor designed to speed up incident response . Financial terms of the merger were not disclosed.

Virtualization and cloud infrastructure provider VMware on Jan. 22 acquired AirWatch, an enterprise mobile management and security solutions company, for about $1.18 billion in cash and $365 million of installment payments and assumed unvested equity.

Also on Jan. 22, secure identity solutions provider HID Global acquired IdenTrust Inc., a provider of solutions for globally interoperable digital identities. Terms were not disclosed.


About the Author

Jeffrey Roman

Jeffrey Roman

News Writer, ISMG

Roman is the former News Writer for Information Security Media Group. Having worked for multiple publications at The College of New Jersey, including the College's newspaper "The Signal" and alumni magazine, Roman has experience in journalism, copy editing and communications.




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