Dive Brief:
- Cisco's security revenue surged last quarter as the technology giant saw growing demand for products designed to protect businesses against emerging cybersecurity threats, including those enabled by artificial intelligence agents, the company reported Wednesday.
- The company posted $17.3 billion in total revenue for its fiscal 2026 fouth quarter ended July 25, a year-over-year increase of 18%. Security revenue rose 14% in the quarter to $2.2 billion from a year earlier.
- “The rise of agentic AI is expanding the threat landscape, driving demand for our security and observability solutions to help monitor agent behavior and mitigate evolving threats,” CEO Chuck Robbins said during a Wednesday earnings call.
Dive Insight:
The revenue surge coincides with increasing reports of AI’s role in cyberattacks.
IBM's 2026 Cost of a Data Breach study released last month found that one in four malicious attacks are AI-enabled, up 56% from the prior year. Those breaches cost organizations an average of $6 million, according to the research.
“These attacks, compromised of mostly deepfake impersonation and AI-enabled malware, are reshaping breach economics,” IBM said in a press release. “Attacks are getting faster and cheaper to launch, while breaches keep getting more expensive to find and fix.”
Meanwhile, identity-verification firm Incode estimates that publicly documented AI-enabled fraud grew more than fivefold between 2023 and 2025.
“Reported losses across those catalogued cases approach 900 million dollars, and that figure represents only a fraction of the true total,” Veljko Davidovic, a senior strategy and growth manager for Incode’s North America business, said in a Thursday blog post.
Robbins said the evolving threat landscape “presents a unique opportunity” for his company. More than 1,500 customers purchased new Cisco security products including Secure Access and Hypershield, while orders for firewalls grew more than 30%.
“When it comes to securing AI, customers increasingly want a unified approach across users, applications, and agents, and we are seeing greater adoption of our AI security capabilities,” he said.
