Cisco Acquires Cybersecurity Firm Lancope For $452 Million

Networking giant Cisco on Tuesday announced plans to acquire cybersecurity firm Lancope for $452.5 million. Cisco said the Lancope acquisition will advance its strategy of providing advanced threat protection to corporate networks. Cisco plans to use Lancope’s technology to bolster its Security Business Group as well as the company’s “security everywhere” strategy.

Founded in 2000 and based in Alpharetta, Georgia, privately-held Lancope specializes in network behaviour analytics, security intelligence and threat visibility. It looks for unusual activity on a network that doesn’t fit typical patterns can often trigger alerts or warning that an attack is underway or a system has been breached. 
  
Even before the deal, Cisco and Lancope have been commercial partners for some time, with Lancope’s StealthWatch technology being used In Cisco’s entire network infrastructure. Under the terms of agreement, Cisco will pay Lancope $452.5 million, as well as retention-based incentives for Lancope employees who will join Cisco. 

Rob Salvagno, VP of Cisco Corporate Development, said in a statement: "As enterprises digitize, security challenges rapidly evolve”, and also added this: “Real time visibility and understanding of the behavior of every machine or device on the network becomes critical in adapting the ability of enterprises to identify and respond to the next wave of cyber threats."

"Lancope has been part of Cisco’s security solution for many years through a successful commercial relationship and now we are coming together as one team," said Rob Salvagno, in a blog post Tuesday. "Together with Lancope, our combined solutions can help turn a customer’s entire network into a security sensor."

Lancope is the third security firm Cisco has acquired this year and the second largest deal for Cisco since Chuck Robbins was named CEO of the company. According to Cisco, the Lancope deal builds on the recent security acquisitions, which include OpenDNS, Portcullis and Neohapsis. In June 2015, Cisco acquired UK-based cloud security firm OpenDNS for $635 million. The OpenDNS deal  was aimed at accelerating the development of the Cisco Cloud Delivered Security Portfolio.

Cisco has been busy beefing up its network security portfolio to address growing security threats. Lancope solutions add network behaviour analytics and security intelligence to Cisco's security portfolio, which gives Cisco more firepower and munitions to protect its network. 

According to a 2014 Worldwide Specialized Threat Analysis and Protection Market Shares report by research firm IDC, Lancope owned around 5.5 percent of the global analysis and protection market in 2014, with a 48 percent revenue increase year-over-year. 

Image credit: Recode.net