By: Chaya Abecassis

In the accelerating arms race of global cybersecurity, the most consequential battles are no longer fought solely in server rooms or security operations centers. They are waged in boardrooms, acquisition announcements, and balance sheets measured in the billions. This week, one such battle reached a decisive moment when ServiceNow, the enterprise software behemoth, confirmed it would acquire the cybersecurity firm Armis for a staggering $7.75 billion—an acquisition that, as reported on Wednesday by The Record, underscores both the strategic urgency and the financial scale now defining the cyber defense sector.

ServiceNow announced the deal on Tuesday, outlining a vision that extends well beyond incremental growth. According to the company, the acquisition of Armis is designed to expand its security portfolio and accelerate the development of what it calls “AI-native, proactive cybersecurity and vulnerability response.” In plainer terms, as The Record report noted, ServiceNow is positioning itself not merely as a manager of digital workflows, but as a central nervous system for enterprise-wide cyber resilience.

The transaction, expected to close in the second half of 2026, will be funded through a combination of cash and debt. While the mechanics of the deal follow a familiar corporate script, its implications are anything but routine. At $7.75 billion, Armis becomes one of the most valuable cybersecurity acquisitions of the year, cementing its status as a crown jewel in an industry where defensive capability has become inseparable from business continuity itself.

Armis’ story begins far from Silicon Valley’s glass towers. Founded in 2015 by Israeli military veterans, the company emerged from an environment where cybersecurity is not an abstract concern but a matter of national survival. As The Record emphasized in its coverage of Israeli-founded cyber firms, many of these companies are shaped by firsthand exposure to high-stakes threat environments, where the cost of failure is immediate and severe.

Initially, Armis focused on securing Internet of Things (IoT) devices and operational technology (OT)—the often-overlooked machinery and infrastructure that power factories, hospitals, utilities, and transportation networks. These environments, long neglected by traditional IT security tools, represented a vast and dangerous blind spot. Armis built its early reputation by illuminating that darkness, offering visibility into unmanaged and unmanaged devices that conventional security platforms could not see.

Over time, the company evolved. As The Record reported, Armis expanded beyond its IoT roots into the broader domain of cyber exposure management, a field concerned not only with detecting vulnerabilities but with understanding how those weaknesses intersect, compound, and ultimately translate into real-world risk. This evolution proved prescient. As digital environments grew more complex and interdependent, organizations increasingly demanded tools that could provide holistic, real-time intelligence rather than siloed alerts.

Armis co-founder and CEO Yevgeny Dibrov has repeatedly framed the company’s mission in terms of protection rather than mere detection. According to statements cited in The Record report, Dibrov described Armis as being created to safeguard critical environments and deliver actionable intelligence to both public and private sector clients. That philosophy—rooted in pragmatism and urgency—has resonated across industries ranging from healthcare and manufacturing to government and defense.

The numbers behind Armis’ ascent are striking. The company recently surpassed $340 million in annual recurring revenue, a milestone that places it among the upper tier of independent cybersecurity vendors. It now employs approximately 950 people, reflecting both rapid growth and significant operational maturity. These metrics, as The Record observes, help explain why Armis commanded such a premium valuation in an increasingly crowded acquisition market.

For ServiceNow, the acquisition is not a speculative gamble but a calculated strategic move. The company has long dominated the market for enterprise management and automation software, reporting $3.4 billion in revenue in its most recent quarter alone. Its platforms are deeply embedded in corporate workflows, handling everything from IT service management to human resources and customer operations.

Yet dominance in workflow automation no longer guarantees relevance in a threat landscape defined by constant cyber risk. Enterprise customers increasingly expect their core platforms to integrate security by design, not bolt it on as an afterthought. By acquiring Armis, ServiceNow gains a sophisticated exposure management engine that can be woven directly into its existing ecosystem.

The company’s stated ambition to advance “AI-native” cybersecurity reflects a broader industry shift. Rather than relying on static rules or reactive alerts, next-generation security platforms aim to use artificial intelligence to anticipate vulnerabilities, prioritize remediation, and automate response. Armis’ real-time asset intelligence and risk modeling capabilities offer fertile ground for such ambitions.

The Armis deal does not exist in isolation. As The Record has reported extensively, 2025 has already become a banner year for cybersecurity mergers and acquisitions. In one of the most eye-catching transactions, Google agreed to acquire Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz for an extraordinary $32 billion. Palo Alto Networks, another industry heavyweight, followed suit with its $25 billion purchase of CyberArk Software.

These deals reflect a shared anxiety among large technology companies: the fear of falling behind in a security landscape that evolves faster than internal research and development cycles can manage. Buying proven platforms, teams, and customer bases has become the fastest—and often the only—way to stay competitive.

ServiceNow’s recent acquisition spree illustrates this urgency. In addition to Armis, the company has announced several other purchases in recent months, including AI firm Moveworks and, earlier this month, a $1 billion agreement to acquire identity security platform Veza. These moves collectively signal an aggressive strategy to transform ServiceNow from a workflow specialist into a comprehensive enterprise intelligence and security hub.

The prominence of Israeli-founded firms in these blockbuster deals is no coincidence. Israel has long been recognized as a cybersecurity powerhouse, producing startups that punch far above their weight on the global stage. The Armis acquisition adds another chapter to this narrative, reinforcing a pattern that The Record has chronicled for years.

What distinguishes many of these companies is not merely technical excellence, but an operational mindset shaped by exposure to real adversaries and real consequences. This perspective has proven attractive to multinational corporations seeking solutions that work not just in theory, but under pressure.

For Armis’ founders and employees, the ServiceNow acquisition represents both validation and transition. While the company will lose its independence, it gains access to ServiceNow’s vast customer base, resources, and global reach. If executed effectively, the integration could amplify Armis’ impact far beyond what it could achieve alone.

At a deeper level, the Armis deal speaks to the changing nature of cybersecurity itself. No longer confined to IT departments, cyber risk now permeates every layer of organizational decision-making. Boards of directors, regulators, insurers, and investors all scrutinize an organization’s security posture as a measure of resilience and credibility.

This shift has elevated cybersecurity from a technical concern to a strategic imperative. Deals like ServiceNow’s acquisition of Armis are not just about revenue growth; they are about control—control over risk, over data, and ultimately over the continuity of modern digital life.

When the transaction closes in 2026, it will mark the end of one chapter in Armis’ story and the beginning of another. For ServiceNow, it represents a bold bet that security will define the next phase of enterprise software dominance. And for the broader industry, it is yet another sign that the era of modest cybersecurity acquisitions is over.

In today’s digital battlefield, scale matters, speed matters, and foresight matters most of all. With $7.75 billion on the line, ServiceNow has made its position unmistakably clear: the future of enterprise software will be secured, or it will not exist at all.