Accenture makes three-pronged OT security acquisition for $4.17bn

The consultancy giant will take a majority stake in Dragos, and full ownership of RunZero and NetRise.

Accenture is to partially or fully acquire three companies in the area of operational technology (OT) security for critical infrastructure and industrial operations for what it called a “combined enterprise value” of approximately $4.17bn.

The consultancy giant will take a majority stake in Dragos – which Accenture said offers “industry-leading OT threat detection” alongside a “trusted vendor-neutral platform and proprietary dataset” – and full ownership of RunZero and NetRise.

Under the deal, Dragos will continue to function as an independent business while overseeing RunZero, a cybersecurity platform that offers “comprehensive exposure assessment and attack-surface intelligence”, and NetRise, which analyses software supply chains for vulnerabilities.

According to Accenture, combining the three companies, which are based in two different US states, will allow it to advance a platform “to cover the extended environment that controls physical processes” – or ‘xOT’ – at greater scale for the protection of power grids, pipelines, manufacturing operations, distribution facilities and data centres.