Palo Alto Networks acquires Demisto, a startup that uses chatbots and machine learning to help cybersecurity teams work more efficiently. Palo Alto Networks has received 560 million dollars (493.7 million euros) for the acquisition. The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of April.
Palo Alto Networks announced the deal today in a comprehensive statement. The intention is to continue to offer the Demisto software in its own right. The company has been in existence for four years and offers security professionals a platform that helps them better coordinate their work in the event of a data breach.
Automate security
With Demisto’s software, system administrators can combine their company’s various tools for monitoring systems in a single, clear location. In addition, the software helps to reconstruct attacks so that they can be better analyzed. A built-in chatbot further helps to identify the most important details from the available information.
That chatbot is equipped with machine learning functions. In this way, the chatbot can help to take over tasks from the already busy team members in case of a data breach. The bone also suggests who within the security team is best placed to conduct an investigation. To this end, the chatbot analyses the way in which team members have dealt with certain situations in the past. The software can also act independently in the event of incidents and does so on the basis of scripts that admins have drawn up in advance.
Many new customers
Not only will Palo Alto Networks take over Demisto’s technology, it will also get a lot of new customers with this takeover. Demisto has more than 150 business customers. There are dozens of them in the Fortune 500 list. Demisto’s customer base is probably one of the reasons behind the relatively high price tag. The startup raised only 69 million dollars (60.7 million euros) in investment rounds.
By the way, this is the fourth million takeover Palo Alto Networks has made in the last twelve months. Four months ago, the previous one took place when the cloud security provider, RedLock, took over for 173 million dollars (152.5 million euros).
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.
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