Enlarge / Artist's impression of how this deal feels from this author's chair. (credit: Getty Images / Gary Hanna / Lee Hutchinson)
US-based two-factor authentication provider Duo Security announced this morning that it is in talks to be acquired by networking giant Cisco. According to Duo’s press release, Duo will become a “business unit” under Cisco’s Security Business Group, and current Duo CEO Dug Song will become the unit’s general manager.
Ars is a happy Duo customer, and we use the product extensively to apply 2FA to a variety of our internal services; beyond that, several Ars staffers (myself included) use Duo’s free tier to wrap 2FA around our own personal stuff, like Linux PAM authentication and Mac/Windows logins. Duo’s flexibility and ease of use has been a huge driver of success for the company, which says it has about 12,000 customers.
But the worry here is that Cisco is going to murder the golden goose—and, as a former Cisco customer, I’m struggling to feel anything but dread about all the ways in which this acquisition might kill everything that’s good about Duo.