Cisco grabs Astrix to secure AI agents

Cisco announced plans to acquire Astrix Security for an undisclosed amount to bolster its AI agent security portfolio. Astrix is known for its security platform that specializes in identifying, managing and securing AI agents and non-human identities, such as machine-to-machine connections. 

“Since its founding five years ago, Astrix Security has focused on securing the identities and credentials that power modern systems — API keys, service accounts, and OAuth tokens — the very credentials that AI Agents are now using (and abusing) to gain access and execute work at scale,” wrote Peter Bailey, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s security business, in a blog about the acquisition. “The addition of Astrix Security brings deep capability to discover and secure every AI agent and non-human identity (NHI), including excessive privileges and real-time threats, enabling organizations to adopt AI securely and at scale.”

Astrix keeps real-time inventory of all AI agents, MCP servers, and NHIs, with context to understand risk and business usage, Bailey stated.

Cisco plans to integrate Astrix Security’s capabilities into Cisco Identity Intelligence, strengthening visibility and context across identities within the Cisco Security platform, as well as to extend these capabilities into Cisco’s zero trust access portfolio, including Cisco Secure Access and Duo Identity and Access Management, according to Bailey.

“Customers will be able to discover, authenticate, and authorize agentic identities, as well as detect and respond when they use Cisco Secure Access as well as Duo,” Bailey wrote. “This visibility and intelligence also feeds into Splunk (or any SIEM), giving security teams a unified view of agent activity with the context needed to investigate and respond at machine speed.”

Astrix capabilities include:

• Discovery and governance for AI agents: Provide a map of the org’s agentic activity, vet policy to resolve hygiene issues, reduce attack surfaces, and prevent compliance violations.
• Agentic access and lifecycle management: Manage AI agents and their NHIs from provisioning to decommissioning.
• Agentic threat detection and response: Detect and respond to threats such as compromised credentials and out-of-scope agent actions.

“As organizations race to adopt agentic technologies, security teams are under real pressure to enable their teams while securing the use of agents,” Bailey wrote. “But agent capabilities are advancing faster than most security models, creating a widening gap in visibility, governance, and response. According to Cisco’s AI Readiness Index, only 24% of organizations can control agent actions with proper guardrails and live monitoring, and just 31% feel fully capable of securing their agent AI systems.”

Agents and other NHIs outnumber humans 100:1, they remain under the radar, and they create the biggest blind spot in our identity perimeter, stated Astrix Security co-founders Alon Jackson and Idan Gour in a blog about the deal.

“Astrix became the platform security teams turn to when they need to discover, govern, and protect every agentic and non-human identity across their environment, from provisioning to decommissioning, from policy enforcement to real-time threat detection,” the co-founders wrote. “Joining Cisco means Astrix now has the scale, the reach, and the platform to bring agentic and NHI security to organizations worldwide. “

Astrix is the second AI-management-related acquisition Cisco has made in recent weeks. In April, Cisco announced plans to acquire AI observability firm Galileo Technologies. 

Galileo’s platform provides real-time observability and guardrails for the development of multi-agent systems. The technology will strengthen Cisco’s Splunk observability portfolio and bring improved AI agent monitoring capabilities, real-time visibility, and protection to the agent development lifecycle, according to Cisco.