Cisco Confirms Plans to Acquire Kenna Security

Cisco today confirmed plans to acquire Kenna Security, provider of vulnerability management technology, with plans to integrate its capabilities into the SecureX platform.

Kenna Security's technology uses machine learning to analyze threat data and identify which risks organizations should prioritize – a useful technology to have at a time when organizations are struggling with a broader attack surface and myriad security point products. The California-based company was founded in 2010 and has raised $98.3 million in funding, Crunchbase reports.

With Kenna's tech, Cisco Security will combine threat and risk-based vulnerability management in the SecureX platform. The integration is intended to help businesses discover and prioritize assets, prioritize vulnerabilities, inform decision-making with more tailored information, improve response time to perform patch management, and help IT and security teams work together to handle vulnerabilities.

In a blog post, Gee Rittenhouse, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Security Business Group, explains how the acquisition will combine the threat detection in Cisco's SecureX platform and Kenna's vulnerability management technology. Reducing vulnerabilities in an enterprise environment remains "a daunting task," he says, and the integration will help address challenges by creating prioritized lists of vulnerabilities and automating remediation.

For Kenna Security, the deal will bring its technology to more than 7,000 machines already running the Cisco SecureX platform, notes CEO Karim Toubba in his own blog post on the deal.

Financial terms of the transaction, expected to close in Cisco's fourth quarter of the 2021 fiscal year, were not published.

Read the full release for more information.