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Tag: Kevin Mandia

  • Google Buying Mandiant For $5.4 Billion

    Google Buying Mandiant For $5.4 Billion

    Google and Mandiant have confirmed a deal for Google to acquire the cybersecurity firm for $5.4 billion.

    Mandiant is a long-time, well-respected member of the cybersecurity community, dating back to its founding in 2004. The company was among the first to directly tie China to cyber espionage, raising its stature in the industry. Microsoft originally was in talks to purchase Mandiant, but ultimately abandoned negotiations over concerns the company wasn’t a good fit, opening the way for Google to move in.

    Google sees Mandiant as a way to help it bolster cloud security, as Google Cloud continues to grow and challenge AWS and Microsoft Azure.

    “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 Kevin Mandia, CEO, Mandiant. “Together, we will deliver our expertise and intelligence at scale via the Mandiant Advantage SaaS platform, as part of the Google Cloud security portfolio. These efforts will help organizations to effectively, efficiently and continuously manage and configure their complex mix of security products.”

    “The Mandiant brand is synonymous with unmatched insights for organizations seeking to keep themselves secure in a constantly changing environment,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. “This is an opportunity to deliver an end-to-end security operations suite and extend one of the best consulting organizations in the world. Together we can make a profound impact in securing the cloud, accelerating the adoption of cloud computing, and ultimately make the world safer.”

    The deal must pass regulatory approval, and be approved by Mandiant stockholders. If everything goes well, the deal is expected to close later this year.

  • Security Firm FireEye Details Hack, State-Sponsored Attack

    Security Firm FireEye Details Hack, State-Sponsored Attack

    Security firm FireEye is the latest victim of a cyberattack, and likely the victim of a state-sponsored attack.

    FireEye is one of the leading cybersecurity firms, providing consulting, services, software and hardware to customers. The company has been involved in detecting and fighting multiple high-profile attacks. Its history and expertise make the news it was attacked all the more concerning.

    CEO Kevin Mandia outlined the attack in a blog post:

    Based on my 25 years in cyber security and responding to incidents, I’ve concluded we are witnessing an attack by a nation with top-tier offensive capabilities. This attack is different from the tens of thousands of incidents we have responded to throughout the years. The attackers tailored their world-class capabilities specifically to target and attack FireEye. They are highly trained in operational security and executed with discipline and focus. They operated clandestinely, using methods that counter security tools and forensic examination. They used a novel combination of techniques not witnessed by us or our partners in the past.

    Mandia says the attackers used some of the company’s Red Team tools that FireEye uses to test its customers’ security. As a result, FireEye is releasing the necessary information for customers to mitigate the threat those tools now pose.

    We are not sure if the attacker intends to use our Red Team tools or to publicly disclose them. Nevertheless, out of an abundance of caution, we have developed more than 300 countermeasures for our customers, and the community at large, to use in order to minimize the potential impact of the theft of these tools.

    FireEye is working with the FBI and Microsoft to investigate the incident. Nonetheless, the fact that the attackers are using methods the company has never seen before is not very encouraging for the cybersecurity industry.