Darktrace buys network visibility specialist Mira
AI cyber giant Darktrace buys network security firm Mira for an undisclosed sum, seeking to enhance the tech stack it offers to highly regulated sectors
British cyber giant Darktrace has announced it is to acquire network traffic visibility specialist Mira Security for an undisclosed sum as it seeks to reinforce its capabilities in network security.
Darktrace, which is most famous for pioneering the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the cyber security realm, claimed that the combination will “close the encrypted data blind spot” without degrading network performance or requiring users to go through complex re-architecting processes.
“The acquisition of Mira Security is another building block in our strategy to develop best-in-class cyber security solutions and keep our customers safe through continuous innovation,” said Phil Pearson, Darktrace chief strategy officer.
“Mira Security has already proven to be a valuable source of insight for our AI, helping us provide unparalleled detection and response capabilities at scale. By bringing the Mira Security team’s deep expertise into Darktrace, we will be able to accelerate innovation, deepen the capabilities of our market-leading Network product and unlock even greater security performance for our customers.”
Deeper visibility
Digging deeper into the deal, the acquisition will supposedly meld Mira’s in-line decryption capabilities with Darktrace’s analysis and understanding of encrypted traffic to help customers glean deeper and more comprehensive insight into network traffic moving through on-premise, cloud or hybrid environments, and bring more comprehensive decryption capabilities to bear into the bargain.
Combined, these are becoming increasingly desirable, if not outright critical, needs for highly regulated bodies, such as operators of critical national infrastructure (CNI), financial services institutions, or government and public sector organisations.
Darktrace further plans to expand Mira’s existing engineering team – which is split between its US base in the state of Pennsylvania, and Centurion near Pretoria in South Africa – to reinforce its own networking R&D expertise.
It hopes to draw upon Mira’s existing knowledge in high-performance network acceleration firmware and software to improve the next generation of its own hardware which, so it claims, will enable 100Gbps interfaces and increase ingestion capacity to support its more strategic deployments.
“The combination of Mira Security and Darktrace’s unique technology and brilliant research and development [R&D] talent will create even more exciting possibilities for protecting complex network environments,” said Niel Viljoen, founder and CEO of Mira Security. “Together, Mira Security and Darktrace will be able to deliver new value for customers and partners.”
Big spender
This is the latest in a string of acquisitions that Darktrace is currently making as it pursues a programme of investment in both organic and acquisitive growth.
At the start of 2025, it picked up UK-based cyber security firm Cado Security – which specialises in automating incident management and response in hybrid environments – for a deal that it was reported may have been worth up to $100m (£74m).
Besides augmenting Darktrace’s cloud security offering, which last year was extended to cover Microsoft Azure environments, this deal was similarly touted as being a game-changer for Darktrace’s R&D abilities.
Darktrace was itself acquired for more than $5bn by US private equity house Thoma Bravo – a longstanding specialist in technology investments – in the autumn of 2024.
Financial terms of the Mira acquisition have not been disclosed.
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