Google to Acquire Mandiant, a Cybersecurity Firm, for $5.4 Billion

Google on Tuesday, March 8, announced one of its largest acquisitions, securing a deal of about $5.4 billion for the cybersecurity company Mandiant. This comes less than a month after Venture Beat revealed that Microsoft was in early talks to acquire Mandiant. Google appears to have gained the upper hand in the cloud computing competition.

According to a press release from Mandiant, the acquisition will complement Google Cloud's existing security services, and the two companies will collaborate to provide a security operation suite as well as advisory services to help customers address critical security challenges and stay protected throughout the security lifecycle.

Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., will pay $23 per Mandiant share in an all-cash deal. The price is 57 percent more than Mandiant’s share price in early February when rumours
of a merger first arose. 

In his opinion, the deal should strengthen Google’s already strong security posture. “Google Cloud has always had a good reputation for security offerings inside of its own cloud. The Mandiant acquisition opens the aperture to any cloud or on-premise configuration,” said Patrick Moorhead, founder and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.

2020 brought considerable attention to Mandiant after finding the infamous SolarWinds attack, which was conducted by Russian hackers who were able to enter into SolarWinds’ networks and alter the code in one of its IT management software upgrades without the company’s knowledge.

A lot of businesses that used SolarWinds management software got backdoor malware. This made both private businesses and government networks more likely to be hacked again.

Few weeks ago, it introduced a new Ransomware Defense Validation service for its SaaS-based XDR platform, Mandiant Advantage, to help companies assess their security systems’ capabilities to defend against ransomware assaults.

As the war in Ukraine rages, Google Cloud head Thomas Kurian said that companies were facing new threats. Mandiant gives the company a platform of security services to add to the Google Cloud platform.

“Cyber security is a mission, and we believe it’s one of the most important of our generation. Google Cloud shares our mission-driven culture to bring security to every organization,” said Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia, in the release. “Together, we will deliver our expertise and intelligence at scale via the Mandiant Advantage SaaS platform, as part of the Google Cloud security portfolio.”