Google’s Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai provides a keynote tackle throughout the opening day of the 2015 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona on March 2, 2015.
Lluis Gene | AFP | Getty Images
Google introduced Tuesday that it plans to buy cybersecurity firmMandiantfor round $5.4 billion as a part of an effort to higher defend its cloud prospects.
The Mountain View search large mentioned it is going to pay $23 a share for the publicly traded firm, which was based in 2004.
If the deal goes by means of, Mandiant will be a part of Google’s cloud computing division, which is but to develop to the identical measurement as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services.
“Organizations world wide are dealing with unprecedented cybersecurity challenges because the sophistication and severity of assaults that had been beforehand used to goal main governments at the moment are getting used to goal corporations in each trade,” mentioned Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, in a press release.
He added: “We look ahead to welcoming Mandiant to Google Cloud to additional improve our safety operations suite and advisory companies, and assist prospects tackle their most essential safety challenges.”
The deal is anticipated to shut later this yr.
Shares ofMandiantclosed up 16% Monday afterThe Information reported thatGooglewas focused on buying the corporate.
Mandiant, which has a market worth round $5.25 billion, was beforehand below the FireEye umbrella earlier than that model was offered. FireEye was credited with serving toMicrosoft discover the SolarWinds hackthat attacked authorities programs final yr.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives mentioned in a observe to traders Tuesday: “With cyber assaults rising by the day and cyber warfare underway from Russia/state sponsored cyber terrorism organizations, Google is doubling down on its cyber safety footprint on the proper time with Mandiant and searching to differentiate itself from the likes of behemoths Microsoft and Amazon within the cloud arms race.”
Ives mentioned his firm expects the deal to have a “main ripple impression” throughout the cybersecurity area.
“Cloud stalwarts Amazon and Microsoft will now be pressured into M&A and additional bulk up its cloud platforms,” he mentioned.
“We imagine cyber names akin to Varonis, Tenable, CyberArk, Qualys, Rapid7, SailPoint, and Ping standout as potential M&A candidates in cyber safety (amongst a handful of personal gamers) given these distributors laser give attention to defending subsequent era cloud workloads from cyber assaults.”
Cybersecurity stockshave, at instances, been resilient within the present market as most shares see a heavy sell-off amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
— Additional reporting by CNBC’s Sarah Alessandrini.