Cisco Acquires Astrix Security to Strengthen AI Agent Security
Founded in 2021, Astrix Security specializes in securing non-human identities (NHIs) by identifying and protecting API keys, service accounts and OAuth tokens. AI agents can access data and execute tasks at machine speed, creating a new and difficult-to-detect attack surface for enterprises if credentials carry excessive privileges or are stolen. This makes NHI security an important part of Cisco’s zero-trust strategy.
Cisco announced its acquisition of Astrix Security on May 4, 2026, and completed the transaction on June 29. The company did not disclose the purchase price, while Calcalist estimated the deal at about $400 million. Astrix’s technology will be integrated into Cisco Identity Intelligence, Secure Access, Duo and Splunk, providing discovery, governance and real-time threat detection for AI agents and NHIs.
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The history behind this eventCisco Acquires WideField to Strengthen Splunk’s Agentic SOC
Cisco made Splunk the centerpiece of its security and observability strategy after completing the $28 billion acquisition on March 18, 2024. The rise of autonomous AI agents, service accounts and other non-human identities has widened the threat beyond stolen credentials: approved users or agents can take unsafe actions after authentication and at machine speed. That makes identity, session and behavioral context essential for an AI-driven security operations center to investigate and respond safely.
Cisco announced its agreement to acquire Santa Clara, California-based WideField Security on June 18, 2026, and said on July 31 that the transaction had closed. Financial terms were not disclosed. WideField’s technology will be integrated into Splunk’s Agentic SOC to normalize and correlate identity, credential, session and activity telemetry across humans, machines and AI agents, helping analysts determine whether actions belong to legitimate sessions and assess the potential blast radius of suspicious behavior.
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