As agents run amok, CrowdStrike's $740M SGNL deal aims to help get a grip on identity security

CrowdStrike has signed a $740 million deal to buy identity security startup SGNL. The move underscores the growing threat of identity-based attacks as companies struggle to secure skyrocketing numbers of non-human identities, including AI agents.

The acquisition will boost SGNL's Falcon cloud security platform's identity capabilities and provide "context-aware authorization" for human, machine, and AI agent identities, CrowdStrike President Michael Sentonas wrote in Thursday blog post. 

"As the agentic workforce expands and non-human identities multiply, organizations must ensure they only provide identities with the privileges needed to operate for the amount of time required," Sentonas wrote.

This, he added, requires "a new approach to securing privileged access, one that continuously evaluates identity risk and dynamically grants or revokes access as conditions change."

That's where SGNL comes into the picture. 

"When I left Google, I saw an industry at an inflection point," SGNL CEO Scott Kriz wrote in ...