The last few years have seen a significant trend toward mergers and acquisitions to consolidate and streamline cybersecurity platforms and operations. Recently, cybersecurity technology leader CrowdStrike announced the acquisition of real-time data intelligence platform Onum for $290M. This deal, a major acquisition by a globally leading company, demonstrates an existing shift toward AI-enhanced cybersecurity and sets the stage for the role of AI to continue evolving.
Why Onum Matters
Onum’s platform is designed to deliver high-speed, real-time data pipelines, empowered by AI technology to provide scalable and adaptable results. The platform has the capability to filter, enrich, and optimize data to aid in a range of functions, including more streamlined data processing, lower barriers for migration, and autonomous threat detection.
The acquisition of Onum can offer considerable benefits to build upon CrowdStrike’s existing functions. Integrating Onum will fortify CrowdStrike’s Falcon Next-Gen SIEM platform by enabling agentic security and IT operations, adding to Falcon’s existing functions with greater capabilities and performance. This has the potential to help in many areas, from strengthening AI functionality to simplifying onboarding processes.
The AI Imperative in Cybersecurity
As AI has continued to grow over the past several years, it has been adopted not only for personal and business use but also for cybercriminal purposes. Many attackers are increasingly using AI technology to increase efficiency, accelerating intrusions and lowering the investment of skills and resources necessary to launch a catastrophic cyberattack.
Organizations are at risk from AI-enhanced attacks, and traditional threat detection and prevention measures are not sufficient to defend against new and evolving threats. Defenders need to turn to solutions that empower them with faster and more autonomous decision-making to combat modern cyberattacks.
George Kurtz’s Vision
The acquisition of Onum will supercharge CrowdStrike’s Next-Gen SIEM, according to CrowdStrike CEO and founder George Kurtz, who notes that the Falcon platform “is the engine that powers the modern SOC, and data is the fuel that makes the engine run.” The integration of Onum’s capabilities “will stream high-quality, filtered data directly into the platform to drive autonomous cybersecurity at scale,” effectively fortifying Falcon’s foundations and operations.
This acquisition is in line with CrowdStrike’s AI-driven security roadmap, where establishing an AI-native SOC and ensuring AI agent security are goals that have been expressly prioritized. By taking this step to acquire Onum, CrowdStrike not only continues a history of strategic acquisitions but also sets itself up to build an AI-driven future.
The Broader Market Context
This deal is not just in line with previous acquisitions and future intentions for CrowdStrike, but also indicative of trends in the broader cybersecurity landscape. The security industry has been shifting toward intelligent data pipelines and agentic AI to enhance protection and relieve the burden on human AI teams. In addition to CrowdStrike, competitors are also investing in AI tools and platforms in order to reduce SOC bottlenecks.
While the general shift toward acquisition and integration is strong, experts note that CrowdStrike’s method is not the only option. “In our 2023 study of security operations, we saw the evolution of three patterns of integration emerging for SecOps tech: the trend toward platforms, a federated approach, and what we called ‘decoupled’ architecture,” says Scott Crawford, research director for information security at 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence.
What Comes Next
As the acquisition and integration of Onum’s functions into the Falcon Next-Gen SIEM platform plays out, enterprises relying on CrowdStrike may see the cybersecurity capabilities of the platform being enhanced and consolidated. This acquisition may set a precedent for future M&A in the cybersecurity industry by introducing streamlined data migration and threat detection processes in place of time-intensive and tedious operations. The focus on data as the most strategic asset in the AI arms race is important, potentially setting the stage for more data-driven AI tools to be centered in the future.
