Microsoft has announced that it has agreed to acquire RiskIQ, a San Francisco-based company that provides cybersecurity services. RiskIQ offers cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) to companies to detect and prevent fraud, phishing, malware, and other online threats. The terms of this deal have not been made public yet, although reports from a reliable US source state that Microsoft is set to pay approximately $500 million in cash.
RiskIQ’s solutions will complement the existing Microsoft cloud-native products such as Microsoft Azure Defender, Microsoft 365 Defender, and Microsoft Azure Sentinel. RisqIQ analyses the web, mapping information such as domain name records and certificates, providing a customer’s understanding into what resources they can access outside the company’s firewall. This acquisition has happened when there are heightened security measures as organizations adjust to hybrid and remote working conditions.
“We’re joining Microsoft to extend and accelerate our reach and impact and are more committed than ever to executing our mission,” RiskIQ co-founder and CEO Elias Manousos said.
RiskIQ’s brief history
RickIQ, which is a member of the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), was co-founded by Chris Kiernan, David Pon, and Lou Manousos in 2009. Before the acquisition, the company had raised roughly $80 million from various investors – the most recent being a series D funding round where it received $15 million, which was meant to be used to integrate their software into critical infrastructure. The company partners with ElastiFlow, ServiceNow, Splunk, Palo Alto Networks, and CrowdStrike to provide efficient services to customers.
No better timing than this
Microsoft has been investing a lot of resources into growing its security infrastructure at a time where there have been major online security threats. Microsoft has made other significant acquisitions in the space of cybersecurity. The tech giant acquired CyberX, a security startup based in Israel, last year to improve its Azure business. It then bought ReFirm labs, an IoT company, last month.
This acquisition has happened after more than a year of deadly cyber-attacks on various organizations worldwide. The REvil ransomware entity, which is linked to Russia, has been causing a lot of trouble online in the last few weeks. Also, there was the complicated SolarWinks hack which caused havoc in both government agencies and Microsoft.
These and many other attacks have forced Microsoft to continue exploring new ways of protecting their customers from online threats. “RiskIQ has built a strong customer base and community of security professionals who we will continue to support, nurture, and grow,” said Eric Doerr, VP of cloud security at Microsoft.
