International. The American giant has decided to invest a millionaire sum to renew its cloud-based cybersecurity solutions, based on the integration of Mandiant's cybersecurity team with the Google Cloud division.
While Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft (GAFAM) have been investing high amounts to improve and prevent cyber vulnerabilities. The sum of Google's latest acquisition surprised since, in 2021, GAFAM spent $2.4 billion to defend against cyberattacks. However, it had previously been announced that Mandiant had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired for an estimated price of US$23.00 per share.
Now, Mandiant is an American cybersecurity company recognized globally for its reports, such as the one it made on the APT41 campaign, where this group located in China is implicated in cases of cyber espionage that directly affected the United States. In addition to his CONTI ransomware report this year, where he indicated that "actors implementing CONTI may have a preference for north American guidance" because more than 60% of the victims he estimated are in this territory.
Geoff Ackerman, threat analyst for Mandiant, said in a statement that "while the crisis in Ukraine has logically captured global attention and the potential for Russian cyberattacks is real, we must remember that other hostile actors in the world are continuing their operations as usual. We cannot ignore other cyber activities, especially in light of our findings that this campaign by APT41, one of the most prolific hostile actors, continues to this day."
So, considering that GAFAM firms are the main targets of hackers, due to their robust databases with information from influential individuals and organizations, the frequency and severity of cyberattacks they receive have increased, and consequently their investment in cybersecurity.
Advantages of this purchase
This acquisition will allow Google to reduce its response time to contain cyber threats, a vital issue as this company provides its customers with cloud software and cybersecurity services, such as Chronicle and Security Command Center. In addition, such an acquisition bridges the gap between it and other players, such as Microsoft and Amazon.
To put it simply, Mandiant is a threat intelligence provider that tracks the nefarious cyber activity of state actors, individuals and gangs, which also has a close working relationship with the U.S. government, thus improving Google's competitiveness.
Finally, Mandiant's fame is not free. This company exposed, in 2020, the case of SolarWinds, an attack on the supply chain of SolarWinds software, which is indicated to be a cybersecurity breach that had as a possible background a cyber espionage campaign of the Russian government in the United States. Similarly, he played a pivotal role in the investigations into the Darkside group's May 2021 colonial pipeline hack.
