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Palo Alto Networks agrees to buy CyberArk for $25B

https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/30/palo-alto-networks-agrees-to-buy-cyberark-for-25-billion/
43•vmatsiiako•2d ago

Comments

pbiggar•2h ago
CyberArk is an Israeli company with deep roots in Israeli military intelligence, with core team coming from Unit 8200 (equivalent of NSA). This acquisition moved Israel intelligence further into US national security ecosystem.

Palo Alto Networks itself already has questionable ties: its founder Nir Zuk is ex-Check Point (another Israeli security firm founded by Unit 8200 alumni), and the company has significant defense and other US government contracts. PA already has tons of executives with backgrounds from Israeli intelligence.

We're letting Israel further into the US' tech stack. This is the cyber equivalent of letting a foreign intelligence service write your encryption libraries or run your access control infrastructure.

resource_waste•2h ago
Thank you for the heads up, I just uninstalled that app. I had it from 1 or 2 years ago and havent used it since.

I feel like I'm being proven right that when selecting software, it should be open source and hosted on-site.

Even if this causes problems, the alternative seems riskier.

bc569a80a344f9c•32m ago
What are you talking about? CyberArk is enterprise privileged access management. It’s not an app you install and forget about for 1-2 years. It’s certainly not something you just uninstall because you found out very basic information about the vendor on HN, because you almost assuredly run it because auditors require you to, and uninstalling it without a like replacement would be an extremely bad idea.
csomar•1h ago
This gives me Wiz vibes (https://www.wiz.io/blog/wiz-joining-google), although CyberArk is much older (though despite being old, it is still unprofitable). In both cases, it seems the product is rather simple/basic but is being sold at insane margin to government(s).
biggerbiggar•59m ago
In surprise news, Israelis in the tech industry have deep roots in Israeli military intelligence.
gdbsjjdn•27m ago
I can't tell if you're being obtuse about this - Israeli policy is to deliberately co-locate and conflate military and civilians so they can spin any attacks on the military as attacks on innocent civilians. Besides mandatory military service the government deliberately puts military buildings close to civilian infrastructure and encourage these cyber security companies with military ties.
le-mark•2h ago
In 2024 Cyberark had $1 billion in revenue. Can anyone comment on how this $25B number makes sense for Palo Alto?
evanjrowley•2h ago
There are plenty of Palo Alto customers who also use CyberArk. Perhaps the Palo Alto leadership believe vertical integration is very valuable?
inglor•2h ago
Sure, Palo Alto can acquire Cyberark and then use its sales organization to up-sell its customers on CyberArk's offering.

I've seen this at Microsoft where acquiring startups that provide capabilities and then incorporating them into Azure or Defender led to the usage of those capabilities skyrocketing and those particular acquisitions (not going to specifics because NDA) ended up being profitable.

ameliaquining•1h ago
I would sort of naively imagine that that would work at a smaller price tag but at $25 billion it would be tough to make it pencil out.
caminante•54m ago
I'm not buying a revenue synergies argument. Has to be more.

1. These synergies are hard to deliver, let alone 25x.

2. Paying 25x revenue implies you're forecasting way more (+30x?) in value.

theMMaI•25m ago
Even moreso when you take into account that CyberArk is not exactly a beloved product because it involves a lot of hassle. At 5-6B it may have been reasonable or simply a portfolio add that's cheap because of shared ownership/refinance but for 25B they could have bought Okta, which would have added much more value to their portfolio...
CPLX•38m ago
The Silicon Valley playbook for the last few decades has just been to acquire monopolies and then exploit them.

That’s illegal of course but we stopped enforcing those laws somewhere in the early 2000s so here we are.

nikanj•1h ago
Cyberark put AI into every slide in their investor deck
okillbite•1h ago
We currently use both vendors.

If anything, this might make us stick with PA longer as they are the "niche" in our environment and presumably we will want to combine the contracts.

alephnerd•1h ago
1. Similar multiples to the Wiz acquisition

2. Large shared customer base,

3. Most enterprises need Identity SPM which Cyberark does pretty well at.

4. Vendor Rationalization is the name of the game. Security teams want to reduce spend significantly in both headcount and tooling, so PANW aquiriring Cyberark makes it easier to defend identity, cloud, networking, and other security spend.

redwood•2h ago
I'm surprised Okta hasn't expanded in this direction
oneplane•1h ago
Both are legacy dinosaurs, it makes sense they start eating each other.
crims0n•18m ago
Palo Alto is a legacy dinosaur? Pretty sure they are the current market leader in both firewalls and SOAR.
1970-01-01•58m ago
We're going to look back at these insane buys in a few decades as unreasonable, because they simply are. You can have an entire county for $24B.
nfriedly•27m ago
Which country? (Not necessarily doubting you, just curious.)
impossiblefork•16m ago
25B is the market cap of Ericsson, which is probably responsible for something like 5% of Sweden's GDP.

25B might not be a whole country, but it's definitely a whole country's phone network and internet infrastructure.

1970-01-01•6m ago
1. Go shopping https://www.privateislandsonline.com

2. Use the remaining billions to purchase a military force

3. Declare yourself sovereign

4. Export your goods and services at reasonable prices.

5. Be recognized by international organizations

6. You're literally a country for less than $24B

seydor•23m ago
Try to cash out that pile of stocks and instantly the bubble pops. The values are virtual

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Palo Alto Networks agrees to buy CyberArk for $25B

https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/30/palo-alto-networks-agrees-to-buy-cyberark-for-25-billion/
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