With cybersecurity on the minds of a great many Americans, Cisco Systems (CSCO +0.58%) is beefing up its presence in the segment with a fresh acquisition. On Friday, the networking equipment giant announced its intent to purchase privately held Kenna Security. Cisco did not disclose the price nor the leading terms of the arrangement.
Kenna Security specializes in risk-based vulnerability management (RBVM), which it describes as "a cybersecurity strategy in which organizations prioritize remediation of software vulnerabilities according to the risk they pose to the organization."
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Cisco said it will incorporate Kenna Security's solutions as part of a wider incorporation of threat management and RBVM into its SecureX platform.
"Our goal is to unify all critical control points into a single platform," Cisco quoted Jeetu Patel, its general manager of security and collaboration, as saying. "With the addition of Kenna Security, we will fundamentally strengthen our platform experience by giving customers the ability to prioritize vulnerabilities based on a robust risk methodology that is tuned to their unique needs."
Security has always been a major concern for Cisco, given that it is a longtime provider of networking products and solutions. Assuming it can successfully integrate Kenna Security's solutions into its own offerings, its platform should become that much more effective at stopping threats.
Such incorporation should not be a problem; Cisco said that Kenna's technology "integrates with all major industry vulnerability-assessment platforms."
Cisco expects the acquisition to close in the fourth quarter of this year.
Investors seemed cautiously optimistic about the deal. They bid Cisco's shares up by almost 0.8% on Friday, a bit shy of the 1.5% gain enjoyed by the S&P 500 index.
