Essential Infrastructure Safety
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Endpoint Safety
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Governance & Threat Administration
Deal Combines Dragos OT Menace Detection With runZero, NetRise
Accenture has agreed to amass a majority stake in operational know-how menace detection agency Dragos, together with full possession of runZero and NetRise, the businesses introduced on Thursday. The mixed worth of the transactions nears $4.2 billion.
See Additionally: Airways and Airports: Visibility Throughout OT, IoT, and IT
Underneath the settlement, Dragos will proceed to function as an impartial firm underneath co-founder and CEO Robert M. Lee, and after regulatory signoff, runZero’s publicity evaluation capabilities and NetRise’s software program provide chain and firmware safety features will probably be built-in into the Dragos platform, Lee wrote in a weblog put up.
runZero CEO HD Moore, NetRise CEO Thomas Tempo, and NetRise Chief Know-how Officer and Chief Scientist Michael Scott will turn into Dragos executives as soon as the transaction closes, which is anticipated in August or September 2026, pending regulatory approval.
“The subsequent section of Dragos is about assembly this market second and shutting the hole the mission requires. Dragos goes to make OT safety more practical for the specialists who’ve at all times relied on it, extra accessible to the IT professionals now within the combat, and supply on the scale and pace required to fulfill this second,” Lee wrote.
The addition of runZero brings publicity evaluation and attack-surface intelligence throughout IT, OT, web of issues and cloud environments. NetRise contributes firmware-level machine visibility and a software program supply-chain safety dataset. Lee stated the mixed platform will give industrial operators a single place to see what’s on their OT community, perceive what’s operating on it and reply to energetic threats. The deal comes on the heels of Dragos’s acquisition of Phosphorus, a linked machine discovery and remediation firm, earlier this month.
Lee instructed ISMG the expanded platform may also strengthen Dragos’s incident response capabilities, giving its IR staff a broader set of instruments to convey into energetic engagements and to deploy in buyer environments forward of an incident. Accenture’s incident response staff features the identical entry. The 2 firms will function their IR companies independently, Lee stated, however may refer shoppers to one another for surge capability when wanted. The choice, he stated, rests with the shopper.
Lee stated the deal’s construction was central to the choice to maneuver ahead with Accenture. He wrote that Dragos’s OT-focused mission has been written into the corporate’s legally binding governing paperwork, giving it a permanence that, in his characterization, earlier investor relationships didn’t assure. Lee stated he’ll stay CEO, will sit on the corporate’s new board of administrators and retain what he described as extra operational autonomy than he held underneath Dragos’s prior possession construction.
The mixed OT cybersecurity organizations are anticipated to generate roughly $208 million in annual recurring income as of June 2026, up 53% 12 months over 12 months. Accenture stated the acquisitions carry robust gross margins and, whereas initially dilutive to earnings, are anticipated to turn into accretive to earnings per share and free money circulate over time.
“In an age when AI-driven cyberthreats and geopolitical danger are evolving at a speedy tempo, our cybersecurity follow is rising by double-digits and has a powerful observe report of leveraging inorganic alternative to gasoline natural progress,” stated Julie Candy, chair and CEO, Accenture, in a press release. “We’re assured Dragos’ differentiated OT platform will speed up our progress within the vital infrastructure and industrial operations markets.”
The corporate stated it already leads in OT cybersecurity companies, a promote it estimates at $7 billion, and is now transferring into OT cybersecurity software program, which it tasks at $27 billion in 2026 and rising to almost $59 billion by 2031.
The transfer extends greater than a decade of OT-focused acquisitions by Accenture, which has grown its cybersecurity enterprise to $10 billion in fiscal 12 months 2025 from $700 million in 2016, a compound annual progress charge the corporate says is 4 occasions its general charge, in accordance with a MarketsandMarkets examine commissioned by Accenture. Earlier OT acquisitions embody Cimation in 2015, Revolutionary Safety in 2020 and, extra just lately, True North Options and SYSTEMA.
Accenture stated Dragos will retain its vendor-neutral strategy and can proceed supporting clients’ multi-vendor OT environments. The corporate stated Dragos will work with companions throughout the know-how ecosystem, together with opponents to Accenture, and can stay impartial in its product choices.
Wall Road questioned the deal on Thursday. Accenture shares fell by greater than 18% Thursday afternoon after it missed Q3 steering, lowered its outlook for the fiscal 12 months and introduced the $4.2 billion cybersecurity acquisition.
