Google is acquiring cybersecurity firm Mandiant for $5.4 billion

Google has announced their intent to acquire cybersecurity company Mandiant for an astonishing $5.4 billion. 

As Google’s second-largest acquisition to date, following their purchase of Motorolla for $12.5 billion in 2012, this deal will see Mandiant becoming part of Google Cloud in order to complement the company’s “existing strengths in security.”

In the announcement, Google detailed how they’ll utilize Mandiant’s proven expertise in order to offer services in threat detection and intelligence, automation and response tools, testing and validation, and managed defence, as well as offering advisory services to enterprises. 

While Mandiant may not be a household name, the cybersecurity company earned fame and this staggering valuation through uncovering the SolarWinds attack in December of 2020. Believed to be backed by the Russian government, the SolarWinds attack compromised computers within the US federal government for almost a year before Mandiant discovered it. 

“Organizations 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,” Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, stated in the announcement. 

“We look forward to welcoming Mandiant to Google Cloud to further enhance our security operations suite and advisory services, and help customers address their most important security challenges.”