Google will acquire the publicly-traded cybersecurity firm Mandiant for $5.4 billion, the tech giant said.
“We will retain the Mandiant brand and continue Mandiant’s mission to make every organization secure from cyber threats and confident in their readiness,” Google Cloud Chief Executive Officer Thomas Kurian wrote in a blog post. Mandiant will operate under Google Cloud while keeping its identity.
Mandiant is known for its digital forensics, or data-gathering capabilities, and its cyberattack-thwarting software.
Google announced its intentions in March, less than a year after Mandiant’s previous owner, FireEye, let it go as part of a $1.2 billion deal with private equity firm Symphony Technology Group.
With Mandiant, Google can offer enhanced data security to its customers. To keep up with a shifting threat landscape, it has continually introduced new products and acquired companies such as Mandiant, which has specific expertise and hundreds of security personnel.
Earlier in the year, for instance, Google acquired Siemplify, an Israel-based cybersecurity startup specializing in security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) services for enterprises. The company, which Google purchased for $500 million, was incorporated into its Chronicle operation on the Google Cloud Platform.
“Combining Google Cloud’s existing security portfolio with Mandiant’s leading cyber threat intelligence will allow us to deliver a security operations suite to help enterprises globally stay protected at every stage of the security lifecycle,” Kurian said. “With the scale of Google’s data processing, novel analytics approaches with AI and machine learning, and a focus on eliminating entire classes of threats, Google Cloud and Mandiant will help organizations reinvent security to meet the requirements of our rapidly changing world.”
