Alongside a steady inflow of venture capital, the cybersecurity industry is also seeing a great deal of merger and acquisition activity as leading technology suppliers work to bolster their network protection capabilities.

The latest player to have entered the mergers and acquisitions spotlight is Cisco Systems Inc., which today picked up a startup called Observable Networks Inc. that sells threat detection software. Its flagship product is a cloud platform that can help companies find security issues in their Amazon Web Services and Azure environments using machine learning.

Observable employs the technology similar to the recently funded Darktrace Ltd., Fortscale Security Ltd. and other breach prevention startups that have been in the limelight recently. The company’s platform collects data about the activity of each device in a network to understand day-to-day operational patterns. Every time a potentially suspect event takes place, its algorithms compare the action against the behavior profile to determine if there may have been a breach.

The results are displayed in a centralizes management console that Observable claims can help companies identify threats faster without hiring security staff. Alongside the cloud edition of its product, the startup offers two other versions that make the same feature set available for on-premises environments and the industrial control units used in factories.

Cisco plans to incorporate the software into its Stealthwatch security offering. Like Observable’s technology, the product is designed to give companies visibility into network infrastructure both on-premise and in the cloud. Cisco obtained it through another acquisition, the $453 million purchase of Lancope in 2015.

The networking giant didn’t divulge how much it paid for Observable, but the transaction was likely much smaller than the Lancope deal. The startup has raised only $4.45 million from investors since launching in 2011. Its staff will join Cisco’s Security Business Group after the acquisition completes, which is expected to happen later this year.

Image: Observable Networks