Palo Alto acquires Cyberark – and declares the IAM market legacy
Palo Alto and CyberArk want to become an omnipresent cyber guardian together. The takeover marks the beginning of the era of identity security.
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Palo Alto Networks acquires Cyberark. The security provider intends to expand its portfolio significantly in the field of identity management. The purchase price is around 25 billion US dollars; Cyberark shareholders will receive 45 US dollars per share in cash and 2.2005 shares in Palo Alto Networks. This corresponds to a premium of 26 percent on the average share price before the announcement. The takeover has already been approved by the boards of directors of both companies and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and shareholder approval.
Specific targets have already been set for the new direction: Palo Alto states that the combined product portfolio will enable customers to better protect human, machine, and AI-based identities in corporate environments in the future. To achieve this, Cyberark's offerings and their functions will initially be integrated into Palo Alto's Strata and Cortex product lines—these are the firewall and security platform.
The age of identities
It is also the provider's major entry into the market for Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Privileged Access Management (PAM). Until now, Palo Alto has only offered such IAM functions as part of its network, cloud, and endpoint security platforms. Nikesh Arora, President and CEO, states that Palo Alto has always entered market segments at their inflection point. For identity security, that moment has now arrived.
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Cyberark is the “undisputed market leader in identity security” – and together they will write “the next chapter in cyber security”. Palo Alto is not sparing with clear statements in the announcement: the provider describes the previous IAM market as “legacy”, which is now facing “disruption”. Together, the providers want to become the “cyber guardians” of customers, who can then devote themselves to their core business and the introduction of AI with peace of mind.
The announcement of the takeover can be found here. Only shortly before this, there was another major upheaval in the network market with Cisco's purchase of Juniper.
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