Mandiant floats off into Google Cloud

Fifteen months after a “velvet divorce” from earlier associate FireEye, the acquisition of cyber defence, risk intelligence and incident response companies specialist Mandiant by Google has formally accomplished on 12 September.

Valued at roughly $5.4bn, the deal will see Mandiant folded into the Google Cloud enterprise unit, though its model id is to be maintained.

Google stated the companies shared a “long commitment to industry-leading security” and the mix of Google’s personal improvements round safe computing, coupled with Mandiant’s “unparalleled frontline expertise” as a cyber first responder would ship an “end-to-end security operations suite with even greater capabilities to support customers across their cloud and on-premise environments”.

“The completion of this acquisition will enable us to deliver a comprehensive and best-in-class cybersecurity solution,” stated Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian. “We believe this acquisition creates incredible value for our customers and the security industry at large. Together, Google Cloud and Mandiant will help reinvent how organisations protect themselves, as well as detect and respond to threats.”

Kevin Mandia, who based the eponymous Mandiant in 2004 following a profession within the US armed forces, a part of it spent on the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, stated: “Mandiant is driven by a mission to make every organisation secure from cyber threats and confident in their readiness. Combining our 18 years of threat intelligence and incident response experience with Google Cloud’s security expertise presents an incredible opportunity to deliver with the speed and scale that the security industry needs.”

With greater than 600 consultants on name to responding to 1000’s of incidents yearly, and over 300 analysts engaged on safety analysis to energy its managed prolonged detection and response (XDR) platform, Mandiant is long-established as a key participant in incident response, and as a frequent and vocal contributor to the cyber group.

Over the years, its groups have repeatedly discovered themselves on the centre of high-profile cyber incidents – in 2021, they performed a big function in shining a light-weight on the risk actors behind ransomware gangs including Maze and the Darkside affiliate which held up Colonial Pipeline; the widespread Microsoft Exchange assaults, amongst many others; and, on the finish of 2020, they performed a pivotal function within the discovery and investigation of the SolarWinds Orion incident.

Writing today, Mandia stated that, when he based the enterprise, he had got down to change how companies defend themselves from cyber threats as a result of he felt cyber know-how was being outpaced by modern risk actors.

“ITo deliver cyber defences as dynamic as the threats, we believed you had to have your finger on the pulse of adversaries around the world,” he wrote.

“To tackle this want, we set out to answer as many cyber safety breaches as potential. We needed to be taught first hand how adversaries had been circumventing frequent safeguards with new and novel assaults; monitor the event and deployment of attacker instruments, their infrastructure, and their underground economies; and research the attacker’s concentrating on developments.

“As we investigated 1000’s of safety incidents through the years, we honed the deep experience required to search out the proverbial needle within the haystack: the hint proof that one thing illegal, unauthorised, or just unacceptable had occurred.

“We believed this skill was the foundation to automating security operations through software, so that organisations and governments around the world could easily implement effective security capabilities.” By becoming a member of forces with Google Cloud, we are able to speed up this imaginative and prescient.”

Paolo Dal Cin, world lead for Accenture Security, commented: “The energy of stronger partnerships throughout the cyber safety ecosystem is vital to driving worth for shoppers and defending industries across the globe.

“The combination of Google Cloud and Mandiant and their commitment to multi-cloud will further support increased collaboration, driving innovation across the cyber security industry and augmenting threat research capabilities. We look forward to working with them on this mission.”