Heads-up: 2FA provider Duo Security to be acquired by Cisco (ugh)

Duo Security announced this morning that it is in talks to be acquired by networking giant Cisco. According to Duo’s press release, Duo will become a “business unit” under Cisco’s Security Business Group, and current Duo CEO Dug Song will become the unit’s general manager.

Ars is a happy Duo customer, and we use the product extensively to apply 2FA to a variety of our internal services; beyond that, several Ars staffers (myself included) use Duo’s free tier to wrap 2FA around our own personal stuff, like Linux PAM authentication and Mac/Windows logins. Duo’s flexibility and ease of use has been a huge driver of success for the company, which says it has about 12,000 customers.

But the worry here is that Cisco is going to murder the golden goose—and, as a former Cisco customer, I’m struggling to feel anything but dread about all the ways in which this acquisition might kill everything that’s good about Duo.