Microsoft Addresses Identity Security Through Acquisition of Aorato

It's easy for most of us to identify the valuable technologies in our IT lives and quickly designate them as a great target for a Microsoft acquisition. You probably see and hear it as much as I do when folks say, "Microsoft needs to buy this company" or "Microsoft would do well to acquire this technology."  But, have you noticed it's never the popular companies that get swept up? Instead it’s the obscure companies that have names no one can pronounce at first glance. But, once you are made aware of a company through an acquisition announcement, you wonder why the company's technologies weren't already more popular and mainstream.

Such is the case today. Microsoft has announced another acquisition of a company I've never heard of that produces a very interesting technology. Aorato is an Israeli company that develops Active Directory security solutions based on Machine Learning. It took me about 5 tries to figure out how to pronounce the company name and I'm sure I still got it wrong. I'd wait to hear a Microsoft person pronounce it, but no two Microsoft employees ever pronounce "Azure" the same. So, I won't hold out much hope there. Thankfully, a company video (see below) did help me wrap my mind around it.

I mentioned during a webinar yesterday that I believe the company that provides the best, secure identity management solution will win the Cloud. And, I truly believe that – and I believe that Microsoft thinks it, too. We've seen recent advancements in the way Microsoft syncs on-premises AD to Azure AD, but with today's acquisition, the company is steaming ahead to better secure the identities contained in Active Directory.

Aorota's technology uses Machine Learning to detect and identify suspicious activity in the corporate network. It records a baseline of "normal" activity and then reports anomalies in an attack timeline. It doesn’t eliminate the threat, but reports on it so that IT can take appropriate actions.

Take a look through this 30 second explanation…

Aorota is clearly an on-premises technology meant for Enterprises, but I'm sure Microsoft already has designs on how to fit it into Azure Active Directory.