Microsoft, is in talks to acquire cybersecurity research and incident response company Mandiant, a deal that would bolster efforts to protect customers from hacks and breaches. The deal is still in making, if finalized its going to be the blockbuster deal.
The deliberations may not result in an offer, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. Mandiant and Microsoft declined to comment. Mandiant shares surged 18% in New York, bringing its market value to almost $4.3 billion. Microsoft stock gained 1.2% to $304.56.
Adding Mandiant would build up Microsoft’s arsenal of products for protecting clients and responding to cybersecurity threats. The software giant bought two smaller cybersecurity companies last year, and said last month that it had amassed $15 billion in security software sales in 2021, up almost 45% from a year earlier. The company last year named former Amazon.com Inc. cloud executive Charlie Bell to oversee its security efforts, and said it had 3,500 employees working to safeguard customers “from the chip to the cloud.”
Mandiant became a standalone company again last year when FireEye which had acquired Mandiant in 2013 sold its eponymous security-product business for $1.2 billion to a consortium led by Symphony Technology Group. While FireEye’s products focus on security for networks, email and cloud systems, Milpitas, California-based Mandiant’s work is primarily in incident response and cyber-intelligence cases.
The potential deal would give Microsoft even deeper insight into consequential hacks. The ubiquity of Microsoft’s Windows operating system already gives the company data on high profile breaches. That, combined with Mandiant’s consultants, who are often called upon to investigate and triage hacks by state-backed and advanced criminal actors, would give the combined companies unparalleled cybersecurity knowledge.
