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Comment by throwaway5752 | Hacker News Reader

Are they a cybersecurity company? I thought they were more about IAM. I realize this is the CNBC headline, but I am curious if Duo does something I was unaware of, like rev. engineering, pen. testing, etc.

ps - congrats to Duo!

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Not to be too sticky about it, but IAM is cybersecurity. There's a lot more to security than reverse engineering, pen-testing, and vulnerability research.

Sorry for making it about semantics when it should be about celebrating Duo and discussing the acquisition. I just don't love the term "cybersecurity" in the first place because HR (training, background checks) and facilities (physical security) are just as important to an overall security posture. I think proper IAM policy and implementation are part of that and none of them succeed in isolation.

That's an excellent point! It would be good to get away from 'cybersecurity' as a term and more towards focus on general security. You're right that none of these succeed in isolation. :)

They are increasingly adding features that check the health and security of endpoints. So not unlike some MDM.

I've never been clear about the connection to the core business but Duo Labs does a lot of vulnerability research / reverse engineering. https://duo.com/labs

Doesn't do identity, relies on external IAM. Look into Duo Beyond.

Interesting, thank you!

Duo Beyond was a very smart move on their part, taking Google's enterprise security architecture and turning it into a third-party turnkey solution for enterprise customers. They did it before Cloudflare, too. I bet that is a big part of the reason why Cisco is paying so much now.

There isn't anything particularly innovative about Duo Beyond. Inspect the Docker containers and you'll see they simply rebranded simplesamlphp and wrote a custom ngx_http_auth_request_module handler for NGINX for their authenticated reverse proxy product.

If Cisco paid 2 billion dollars for this, my mind is really blown. I'm struggling to figure out how they ended up at 2 billion because I don't see it in anything material -- perhaps the patents or a play against Okta for recurring revenue from smaller companies which might not have Cisco gear?

Cisco didnt pay $2B for simplesamlphp, they paid it for "Duo Security provides cloud-based tools to prevent security breaches on devices." :)

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