Palo Alto Networks Wraps LightCyber Acquisition

PRESS RELEASE — SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Palo Alto Networks^® (NYSE: PANW), the next-generation security company, today announced its acquisition of LightCyber^®, a privately held cybersecurity company that has developed award-winning, highly automated and accurate behavioral analytics technology. Under the terms of the agreement, Palo Alto Networks has acquired LightCyber for $105 million in cash.

Recognized by Gartner in two recent market guides*, LightCyber has been leading the industry in the development of automated behavioral analytics capabilities, using sophisticated machine learning to quickly, efficiently and accurately identify attacks based on identifying behavioral anomalies inside the network.  

Palo Alto Networks will continue to offer the LightCyber products and support existing customer implementations while it engineers the technology into the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform by the end of the calendar year. Bringing behavioral analytics to the platform will enhance its automated threat prevention capabilities and the ability for customer organizations to prevent cyber breaches throughout the entire attack life cycle.{ad}

QUOTES:

Automated Attack Behavior Analytics Enhances Breach Prevention
According to a report by the Ponemon Institute**, when attackers successfully find their way into a network, there is an industry average dwell time of approximately five months to discover their activity. During that time, an advanced attacker can initiate command and control, lateral movement, and data exfiltration. This kind of dwell time and advancement in the attack lifecycle can lead to extensive damage and loss of confidential data.

Common approaches to this problem include third-party, log-based collection and analysis tools that are often …

{vpipagebreak}

… error-prone, limited in visibility, lack important context, are labor-intensive, require a data scientist to investigate false positives and tune for accurate outcomes, and lack enforcement capabilities. 

To address these challenges, reduce attacker dwell time, minimize damage done and prevent breaches, the LightCyber technology employs highly accurate and automated machine learning techniques to analyze user and entity activity and then identifies and protects against anomalous activities that are indicative of an active attack. 

This behavioral attack detection capability complements the existing protections delivered by the Palo Alto Networks platform to help security team members focus on only the most meaningful alerts and improve the time to breach response and prevention. 

About Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks is the next-generation security company, leading a new era in cybersecurity by safely enabling applications and preventing cyber breaches for tens of thousands of organizations worldwide. Built with an innovative approach and highly differentiated cyberthreat prevention capabilities, our game-changing security platform delivers security far superior to legacy or point products, safely enables daily business operations, and protects an organization’s most valuable assets. Find out more at www.paloaltonetworks.com.

* Gartner Market Guide for User and Entity Behavioral Analytics (G00292503), December 2016 and Gartner Market Guide for Endpoint Detection and Response Solutions (G00298289), November 2016.

** Ponemon report: “The State of Malware Detection & Prevention”; Ponemon Institute Research Report, March 2016.