IBM acquiring Agile 3 Solutions to give execs visiblity into security risks

IBM Security announced this morning that it has purchased Agile 3 Solutions, a San Francisco-based company that has developed a security analytics dashboard aimed at helping executives understand cyber-security risks inside an organization.

The acquisition gives IBM another tool in its security arsenal to provide more insight to key decision makers, which ultimately could help them sell more security services.

“Adding Agile 3 Solutions to the IBM Security immune system of capabilities gives our team the ability to not only protect critical data, but demonstrate why it is at risk, and how to remediate that risk. Knowing what your crown jewel data is, and understanding its susceptibility to exploitation via external or insider threats, is an imperative for any organization,” IBM Security general manager Marc van Zadelhoff said in a statement.

Agile 3 had been working as an IBM business partner prior to the acquisition. IBM also announced it was purchasing Agile 3 sub-contractor, Ravy Technologies as part of the deal. No terms were immediately available for either purchase.

One of the issues we have seen with increasing number of high profile hacks over the last several years, is that companies don’t always appear to be taking cyber-security all that seriously. They pay the fines, deal with the bad publicity, and they move on.

That’s because these companies aren’t in the security business. Security is a secondary problem to actually running their companies. When executives look at how to distribute resources across the organization, it’s hard to justify allocating big chunks of cash to cyber-security when it doesn’t have a direct impact on the bottom line. But it clearly has an indirect one.

If companies live and die by consumer trust, when customer data is stolen, nevermind a company’s intellectual property, it can begin to erode consumer confidence in the organization, which could ultimately lead to lower sales.

One way to get these key stakeholders to see the gravity of the problem is to give them a tool, designed specifically to give them insight into the nature of the problems their companies are facing from a security and risk perspective.

Today’s announcement marks the 20th security acquisition IBM has made since 2015 as it aims to redefine the company around security, analytics, cloud and artificial intelligence. So far the transition has been difficult. Just last week, the company announced its 19th straight quarter of declining revenue. The good news is that the company reported that the strategic areas of the business they have been emphasizing during the transition are growing, and the hope is that eventually that will stop the slide.