Palo Alto completes CyberArk acquisition

Palo Alto Networks has completed its acquisition of identity security and access management company CyberArk in an effort to provide the security solutions needed for the AI era. With the acquisition, Palo Alto is establishing identity security as a core pillar of its platform strategy.

Under the terms of the agreement, CyberArk shareholders are entitled to receive US$45 cash and 2.2005 shares of Palo Alto Networks’ common stock for each ordinary share held. Palo Alto plans to continue offering CyberArk’s identity security solutions as a standalone platform, but to also infuse the capabilities into the Palo Alto security ecosystem.

The acquisition of CyberArk aims to address this shift by extending privilege security controls beyond a narrow set of administrators to every identity across the enterprise. By democratising privileged access across human, machine and AI identities, organisations can reduce standing privileges, limit lateral movement and stop identity-based attacks faster.

Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora said growing adoption of AI agents will require organisations to secure human, machine and agent identities. Today machine identities outnumber human identities by ratios of more than 80 to 1, and nearly 90% of organisations have already suffered an identity-related breach.

Arora said for customers, the acquisition will mean the end of identity silos.

“They can now manage privileged access across their entire hybrid cloud environment from the same company they trust for network security and security operations — to ensure they are secure in the AI era,” he said.

CyberArk’s Identity Security solutions will continue to be available as a standalone platform. In addition, integration is underway to infuse CyberArk’s capabilities into the Palo Alto Networks security ecosystem. The companies say existing customers will experience no disruption and will benefit from an accelerated roadmap focused on resilience, operational efficiency and improved security outcomes.

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