Zscaler Completes Red Canary Acquisition For Major SecOps Push

Jay Chaudhry, founder and CEO of Zscaler, told CRN previously that acquiring Red Canary would accelerate the vendor’s security operations expansion and help to displace traditional SIEM.

Zscaler announced Friday it has completed its acquisition of Red Canary in a move that aims to accelerate the vendor’s security operations expansion and help to displace traditional SIEM.

The $675 million deal for Red Canary was announced in May. Red Canary will continue to operate under its current name as a division of Zscaler, the company said in a news release announcing the completion of the deal.

[Related: Zscaler CEO Jay Chaudhry On ‘Reimagining’ Security Operations: ‘SIEM Goes Away’]

As a well-known player in MDR (managed detection and response), Red Canary has tremendous expertise and technology in security operations (SecOps) that will massively accelerate Zscaler’s moves into the space, Zscaler founder and CEO Jay Chaudhry told CRN in June, noting that “we don't intend to compete with MDRs.”

Instead, Zscaler plans to integrate the Red Canary technology with functionality from its acquisition of security data fabric provider Avalor in March 2024, to offer new SecOps capabilities such as threat management that can improve security outcomes while removing the need for traditional SIEM (security information and event management).

“In this world, the SIEM goes away,” Chaudhry said.

Top channel executives told CRN the moves should only bring the company closer to its partners, which have already begun to see an elevated role around delivery of Zscaler-related services to commercial customers.

Ultimately, Chaudhry said he sees security operations technology as the largest new segment, beyond Zscaler’s core area of zero-trust secure access, that the company has pursued since its launch in 2008.