Cisco Plans to Acquire Kenna Security, Boost Security Offerings

Cisco Systems (CSCO) plans to acquire privately-held California-based Kenna Security in a bid to enhance its security offerings. The technology company develops and sells networking hardware, software, telecommunications equipment, and other high-technology services and products.

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The deal is likely to close in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021. However, the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Kenna Security, Inc. is a cybersecurity company that provides vulnerability management technology. It uses machine learning (ML) and data science to track, predict, prioritize and find solutions for cyber risks.

Per the terms of the deal, Cisco plans to integrate Kenna’s threat and risk-based vulnerability management technology into its SecureX platform. The integration is likely to expand Cisco’s security platform and help businesses to discover and prioritize assets and vulnerabilities.

This will ultimately help the IT and security teams to reduce attacks, speed up and automate decision-making with personalized information, and handle vulnerabilities in a better way.

Cisco Security and Collaboration’s senior VP Jeetu Patel said, “Hybrid work is here to stay, and the increasing complexity of cybersecurity is our customers’ biggest challenge. We must radically simplify security to stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape.”

Patel further added, “Our goal is to unify all critical control points into a single platform. With the addition of Kenna Security, we will fundamentally strengthen our platform experience by giving customers the ability to prioritize vulnerabilities based on a robust risk methodology that is tuned to their unique needs.” (See Cisco Systems stock analysis on TipRanks)

On May 14, Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold increased the stock’s price target to $55 from $50 (4% upside potential) and reiterated a Buy rating.

Leopold said, “We think the April quarter meets expectations; supply chain constraints and a more gradual recovery dampen prospects. Checks at resellers and distributors revealed weak trends through March with modest improvement in April. Supply chain checks did not reveal challenges.”

The rest of the Street is cautiously optimistic about the stock with a Moderate Buy consensus rating. That’s based on 8 Buys versus 4 Holds. The average analyst price target of $57.10 implies almost 8% upside potential to current levels. Shares have increased 17.4% over the past year.