Cisco’s Acquisition of CloudLock to Expand Cloud Security Portfolio

Cisco announced its intent to acquire CloudLock Inc., a privately held cloud security company based in Waltham, Massachusetts. CloudLock specializes in cloud access security broker (CASB) technology that provides enterprises with visibility and analytics around user behavior and sensitive data in cloud services, including SaaS, IaaS and PaaS. The acquisition is intended to further enhance Cisco's security portfolio and build on Cisco's Security Everywhere strategy, designed to provide protection from the cloud to the network to the endpoint.

More data, more devices, and the increasingly decentralized way companies do business means that security has to evolve beyond an on-premises approach. CloudLock helps customers accelerate their cloud adoption by delivering security built specifically to meet the realities of today's cloud-first enterprise. CloudLock's CASB technology helps customers understand and monitor user behavior and sensitive data in cloud applications, providing greater visibility, compliance and threat protection regardless of whether these applications are fully sanctioned by IT or not.

The acquisition is intended to help accelerate Cisco's cloud security portfolio and extend the cloud security offering throughout the enterprise. Cisco now plans to offer the industry's broadest cloud security protection and enable its customers to realize the benefits of the mobile-cloud era.

The CloudLock team will join Cisco's Networking and Security Business Group under Senior Vice President and General Manager David Goeckeler. Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay $293 million in cash and assumed equity awards, plus additional retention-based incentives for CloudLock employees who join Cisco. The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of fiscal year 2017, subject to customary closing conditions.

Keywords: Cloud Security, Analytics, Cloud Services, SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, Mobile-Cloud, ARC Advisory Group.