[UPDATE: Google to Acquire Mandiant for $5.4 Billion in Cash ]
Google has joined the multi-billion-dollar jostling to purchase cybersecurity powerhouse Mandiant, according to published reports.
Less than a month after news emerged that Microsoft was interested in buying Mandiant at a price tag in the range of $4 billion, Google has joined the bidding and is said to be in talks to acquire the company credited with discovering the Solarwinds supply chain compromise.
Trading of Mandiant shares were halted late Monday after reports of Google’s interest. Mandiant currently has a market cap of $5.26 billion and is considered a premier incident response firm tracking advanced nation-state malware activity.
The company was originally acquired by FireEye in December 2013 but the two firms were split apart late last year in a $1.2 billion private equity transaction that separated the Mandiant Solutions unit from FireEye’s endpoint protection and cloud security product.
[ READ: Microsoft’s $10 Billion Cybersecurity Business ]
Both Google and Microsoft are betting heavily on cybersecurity to drive their respective cloud computing offerings. Microsoft has publicly boasted that security-related revenues exceed $10 billion per year and Google has beefed up its own security offerings with the recent acquisition of Siemplify to add to the Chronicle SIEM platform and the VirusTotal malware analysis toolset.
Related: Microsoft’s $10 Billion Cybersecurity Business
Related: FireEye Builds Security Powerhouse With $1B Mandiant Deal
Related: Google Parent Alphabet Launches Cybersecurity Firm Chronicle
Ryan Naraine is Editor-at-Large at SecurityWeek and host of the popular Security Conversations podcast series. He is a security community engagement expert who has built programs at major global brands, including Intel Corp., Bishop Fox and GReAT. Ryan is a founding-director of the Security Tinkerers non-profit, an advisor to early-stage entrepreneurs, and a regular speaker at security conferences around the world.
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