Cisco announced yesterday its intent to acquire Lancope, Inc., a privately held network security company based in Alpharetta, GA. Lancope provides network behavior analytics, threat visibility and security intelligence to help protect companies against top cyber security threats.

As mobility expands and the number of connected devices increases, so do cyber criminals' skills and capacities to successfully breach a company and avoid detection. The one constant is that all connect through the network, which can be continuously monitored for changes in network behavior to detect and mitigate threats. Lancope's StealthWatch system identifies suspicious traffic patterns inside the network to detect a wide range of attacks. Through continuous network visibility, specialized threat analysis and protection, Lancope helps customers to monitor, detect, analyze and respond more quickly to modern security threats on enterprise networks.

Cisco and Lancope will advance Cisco's Security Everywhere strategy of providing advanced threat protection across the full attack continuum -- before, during and after an attack. With Lancope, Cisco's portfolio of security solutions adds an additional capability of network behavior analytics that extends protection further into the network.

"As enterprises digitize, security challenges rapidly evolve. Real time visibility and understanding of the behavior of every machine or device on the network becomes critical in adapting the ability of enterprises to identify and respond to the next wave of cyber threats," said Rob Salvagno, vice president, Cisco Corporate Development. "Cisco is committed to helping organizations defend their networks and devices. Together with Lancope, our combined solutions can help turn a customer's entire network into a security sensor."

The Lancope team will join the Cisco Security Business Group organization led by David Goeckeler, senior vice president and general manager. Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay $452.5 million in cash and assumed equity awards, plus additional retention based incentives for Lancope employees who join Cisco. The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of fiscal year 2016, subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory review.