Google’s acquires cybersecurity firm Mandiant for $5.4 billion in biggest acquisition in 10 years

Google has announced its intent to acquire Virginia, USA, based cybersecurity organisation Mandiant in an all cash transaction valued at $5.4 billion. Post the acquisition which is expected to close later this year, Mandiant will join Google Cloud to beef up the Mountain view, California-based company’s cloud security stance.  

Google’s topmost acquisition was way back in August 2011, when it bought advertising and search company Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. In January 2014, Google sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for $2.91 billion.  

Mandiant provides incident response and general security consulting, along with incident management solutions. As of the 2021 fiscal the company had raked up revenues of $400 million, and has close to 2,300 employees currently.  

Google said that Mandiant’s solutions will combine with the security capabilities of the Google Cloud, in a bid to create an “end-to-end security operations suite”.  

According to Mandiant, about 600 security consultants  and 300 intelligent analysts will join the Google cloud team.  

“Together, we will deliver the Mandiant Advantage SaaS platform, as part of the Google Cloud security portfolio. These efforts will help organisations to manage and configure their complex mix of security products.” Said Kevin Mandia, CEO, Mandiant. 

Mandiant is well known for uncovering the infamous SolarWinds cyberattack in April 2020, which wasn’t a one off incident targeting one company, but led to a chain of events that led to a larger supply chain incident that affected many organisations, along with the US government.  

“Organisations around the world are facing unprecedented cybersecurity challenges as the sophistication and severity of attacks that were previously used to target major governments are now being used to target companies in every industry,” pointed out Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud.  

The recent war on Ukraine has intensified the focus on cybersecurity measures.  

Also read: How tech giants are embracing safety steps to fight Russia-Ukraine crisis

Also read: Cyber-attacks on Ukraine’s government, military sector increase by nearly three times

In early February, media reports said that Microsoft was in discussions with Mandiant on a potential deal. However the deal did not go through as Microsoft was sceptical if Mandiant would be a “strategic fit” for the company, according to Bloomberg.