Google buys security firm Mandiant for $5.4B

SILVER SPRING, Md. – Google is fortifying its cloud services with a $5.4 billion acquisition of the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, the companies announced Tuesday.

The acquisition is the first of many that analysts foresee in the cybersecurity sector following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Analysts and government officials have said they expect a wave of cyberattacks from Russia and others as geopolitical tensions rise.

“In a massive growth backdrop for cybersecurity and further tailwinds seen during this Ukraine invasion from Russia bad actors/nation state attacks, we believe today’s deal is the tip of the iceberg to a massive phase of consolidation potentially ahead for the cloud space,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote Tuesday.

Google, a subsidiary of Mountain View, California-based Alphabet Inc., will pay $23 per Mandiant share in all-cash deal expected to close this year.

The price represents a 57% premium on Mandiant’s share price in early February when speculation about a deal between the companies first surfaced.

Mandiant, based in Reston, Virginia, and its 5,300 employees will join Google Cloud as soon as the transaction closes.

“The Mandiant brand is synonymous with unmatched insights for organizations seeking to keep themselves secure in a constantly changing environment,” said Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian. “This is an opportunity to deliver an end-to-end security operations suite and extend one of the best consulting organizations in the world.”

Technology research and advisory firm Gartner estimates that total spending for worldwide information security and risk management reached $155 billion last year and is forecast to grow another 10% this year, to more than $170 billion.

Even before the war, stock analysts have been predicting growth of as much as 20% in the cyber security sector.

Russia has long been accused of disrupting other governments and businesses via online attacks and Western officials have warned that Russia could launch more cyberattacks against Ukraine and its allies.

Report: Chinese hackers hit networks of six states

WASHINGTON – Hackers working on behalf of the Chinese government broke into the computer networks of at least six state governments in the United States in the last year, according to a report released Tuesday by a private cybersecurity firm.

The report from Mandiant does not identify the compromised states or offer a motive for the intrusions, which began last May and continued through last month.

But the Chinese group believed responsible for the breaches, APT41, is known to launch hacking operations both for old-fashioned espionage purposes and for financial gain.

“While the ongoing crisis in Ukraine has rightfully captured the world’s attention and the potential for Russian cyberthreats are real, we must remember that other major threat actors around the world are continuing their operations as-usual,” said Geoff Ackerman, a principal threat analyst at Reston, Virginia-based Mandiant Inc.

He added in his statement: “We cannot allow other cyberactivity to fall to the wayside, especially given our observations that this campaign from APT41, one of the most prolific threat actors around, continues to this day.”

State agencies remain ripe targets for hackers, even as the Biden administration has announced additional steps to safeguard federal government systems from hacking.

That’s an especially urgent concern in light of the massive SolarWinds espionage campaign in which Russian intelligence operatives exploited supply chain vulnerabilities to break into the networks of at least nine U.S. agencies and dozens of private-sector companies.

From wire reportsIn this case, the report says, the hackers exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in an off-the-shelf commercial application used by 18 states for animal health management.