Palo Alto Networks, the world's largest cyber security corporation headquartered in the United States, announced on the 30th (local time) that it has acquired Israeli security company CyberArk for $25 billion (about 34.8 trillion won). It is the largest merger and acquisition (M&A) deal in the industry since Alphabet, Google's parent company, bought Wiz for $32 billion (about 45 trillion won) in March.
Palo Alto Networks said the acquisition gives it a foothold to expand into the identity security field. CyberArk, which has more than 10,000 customers worldwide, is a cyber security corporation with strengths in privileged access management (PAM) and identity security. It has technology that restricts access to sensitive or confidential corporate information to protect against threats such as ransomware attacks.
This acquisition is the largest M&A deal Palo Alto Networks has completed to date. Nikesh Arora, Palo Alto Networks chief executive officer (CEO), a former SoftBank executive, has pursued aggressive acquisitions since taking the helm in 2018. According to the Financial Times, Palo Alto had invested at least $7 billion (about 9.74 trillion won) in acquiring promising security companies up until just before this deal.
Earlier, Palo Alto acquired Israeli cloud data security company Dig Security for $400 million in October 2023, and in November of that year bought secure browser startup Talon for $600 million.
Palo Alto's recent acquisition spree has focused on strengthening cyber security capabilities to respond to AI-based security threats. Last year it acquired IBM's QRadar software-as-a-service (SaaS) assets for $1.1 billion, and earlier this year it acquired cyber security startup Protect AI for about $700 million.
The Financial Times reported, "As cyberattacks targeting corporations increase, the cyber security M&A market is booming."