Global cybersecurity corporations Palo Alto Networks said on the 11th (local time) that it has finalized the acquisition of Israeli identity (indentity·신원) security corporation CyberArk.
CyberArk, which has about 10,000 customers worldwide, is a cybersecurity corporation strong in privileged access management (PAM) and identity security. Palo Alto Networks announced in Jul. last year that it would acquire CyberArk for $25 billion (about 35 trillion won), and the acquisition was completed recently after regulatory approval.
Through this acquisition, Palo Alto Networks said it has secured security capabilities to comprehensively protect all identities, including humans, machines, and artificial intelligence (AI) agents. CyberArk's identity security platform is designed to protect all types of identities across corporations.
With the spread of cloud, automation, and AI in recent years, identity has emerged as a key attack surface in modern corporate security. In particular, as human, machine, and AI identities with high privileges continue to grow, attackers are using account takeover and other tactics as major attack paths.
According to Palo Alto Networks, machine identities now outnumber human identities by more than 80 to 1, and human identities are being managed based on roughly 75% legacy privilege models. In addition, about 90% of organizations was found to have already experienced an identity-centric breach.
Through the CyberArk acquisition, Palo Alto Networks plans to expand privileged access controls from the existing administrator-centric privileged security scope to all identities across corporations. It aims to manage privileged access across human, machine, and AI identities to minimize always-on privileges and limit attackers' lateral movement to speed responses to identity-based attacks.
A company official said, "Organizations that adopt identity-centric security controls can preemptively block credential abuse and excessive access rights to cut incident response time by up to 80%."
CyberArk's identity security solution will continue to be offered as a standalone platform, while integration with the Palo Alto Networks security ecosystem is also underway. Existing customers are expected to experience improved resilience, operational efficiency, and security outcomes without service interruption.
Nikesh Arora, Palo Alto Networks chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), said, "The spread of AI agents demands a new security paradigm that protects all identities, including humans, machines, and AI agents," adding, "Customers will be able to centrally manage privileged access across Hybrid Cloud environments through the same corporations they have trusted for network security and security operations."
Matt Cohen, CyberArk's CEO, said, "By combining the two companies' technologies, we will deliver powerful security capabilities that can effectively block identity-based breaches."