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Google to Acquire Mandiant for $5.4 Billion

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Google has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Mandiant for $23.00 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $5.4 billion, inclusive of Mandiant’s net cash. Upon the close of the acquisition, Mandiant will join Google Cloud.

“Today, organizations are facing cybersecurity challenges that have accelerated in frequency, severity, and diversity, creating a global security imperative. To address these risks, enterprises need to be able to detect and respond to adversaries quickly; analyze and automate threat intelligence to scale threat detection across organizations; orchestrate and automate remediation; validate their protection against known threats, and visualize their IT environment in order to identify and simulate new threats. The cloud represents a new way to change the security paradigm by helping organizations address and protect themselves against entire classes of cyber threats, while also rapidly accelerating digital transformation,” the company said in a press statement.

The acquisition of Mandiant will complement Google Cloud’s existing strengths in security. Google Cloud offers customers a robust set of services including pioneering capabilities such as BeyondCorp Enterprise for Zero Trust and VirusTotal for malicious content and software vulnerabilities; Chronicle’s planet-scale security analytics and automation coupled with services such as Security Command Center to help organizations detect and protect themselves from cyber threats; as well as expertise from Google Cloud’s Cybersecurity Action Team. With the addition of Mandiant, Google Cloud will enhance these offerings to deliver an end-to-end security operations suite with even greater capabilities to support customers across their cloud and on-premise environments.

As a recognized leader in a strategic security advisory and incident response services, Mandiant brings real-time and in-depth threat intelligence gained on the frontlines of cybersecurity with the largest organizations in the world. Combined with Google Cloud’s cloud-native security offerings, the acquisition will help enterprises globally stay protected at every stage of the security lifecycle:

  • Advisory Services: Mandiant’s proven global expertise in providing a comprehensive incident response, strategic readiness, and technical assurance helps customers mitigate threats and reduce business risk before, during, and after an incident.
  • Threat Detection and Intelligence: Mandiant’s experience detecting and responding to advanced adversaries offers customers actionable insights into the threats that matter right now.
  • Automation and Response Tools: Security operations tools within Google Cloud’s Chronicle, Siemplify solutions, and Mandiant’s Automated Defense help customers analyze, prioritize and streamline threat response and leverage Mandiant’s expertise as a virtual extension of their teams.
  • Testing and Validation: Mandiant Security Validation helps customers continuously validate and measure the effectiveness of cybersecurity controls across cloud and on-premise environments, and complements Google Cloud’s Security Command Center to help ensure strong risk management.
  • Managed Defense: Mandiant’s managed detection and response service acts as a seamless extension of customers’ security teams, delivering continuous monitoring, event triage and threat hunting that’s agnostic to customers’ endpoint and network tooling.

“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,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. “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.”

“There has never been a more critical time in cybersecurity. Since our founding in 2004, Mandiant’s mission has been to combat cyber attacks and protect our customers from the latest threats,” said Kevin Mandia, CEO, Mandiant. “To that end, we are thrilled to be joining forces with Google Cloud. Together, we will deliver expertise and intelligence at scale, changing the security industry.”

“As a pioneer in offering multi-cloud technology, Google Cloud’s security operations suite will continue to provide a central point of intelligence, analysis, and operations across on-premise environments, Google Cloud, and other cloud providers. In addition, Google Cloud is deeply committed to supporting the technology partners of both companies, including the endpoint ecosystem. This acquisition will enable system integrators, resellers, and managed security service providers to offer broader solutions to customers,” Google said.

The acquisition of Mandiant is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of Mandiant stockholder and regulatory approvals, and is expected to close later this year.

Cloud

SentinelOne Simplifies Secure Cloud Migrations on AWS

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SentinelOne today announced its participation in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Workload Migration Program. This initiative supports AWS Partner Network (APN) members with SaaS offerings on AWS to accelerate and streamline workload migrations.

Through the program, SentinelOne will provide AWS customers with accelerated, secure cloud migration support, leveraging modern AI-powered CNAPP capabilities to ensure rapid and protected transitions. With access to AWS funding, technical resources, and go-to-market support, SentinelOne will help organizations reduce migration timelines and costs while maintaining robust security.

SentinelOne’s Singularity Cloud Security delivers real-time visibility and protection throughout the migration journey—whether from on-premises or another cloud—enabling a secure, seamless transition to AWS.

“Through our participation in the AWS ISV Workload Migration Program, SentinelOne is helping customers accelerate secure cloud migrations with end-to-end protection and visibility,” said Ric Smith, President of Product, Technology, and Operations at SentinelOne. “Whether moving from on-prem or another cloud to AWS, organizations can count on us to deliver the security they need throughout their journey—realizing the performance, speed, agility, and cost benefits of the cloud.”

Singularity Cloud Security combines agentless and agent-based protection for deep visibility, continuous posture management, and real-time threat detection across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. By collaborating with AWS and ecosystem partners, SentinelOne ensures seamless integration into migration projects, helping customers move faster, reduce risk, and scale confidently in the cloud.

Availability: SentinelOne’s solutions are available globally.

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Versa and OPSWAT Partner to Strengthen SASE Security with Real-Time Device Defense

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Versa has announced a strategic technology partnership with OPSWAT to significantly enhance the real-time device security monitoring capabilities of the Versa SASE Client. The Versa SASE Client uniquely combines connectivity and security for users and their devices. It facilitates real-time best-path routing and enforces dynamic security policies based on Zero Trust principles and continuously evaluated device security posture.

Through this partnership, Versa has integrated OPSWAT’s MetaDefender Endpoint Security SDK directly into the Versa SASE Client. This integration empowers IT teams to leverage real-time device posture data, enabling them to automatically validate endpoints and enforce Zero Trust policies, thereby reducing the attack surface.

“Remote workers and BYOD users need access to critical business systems and data; however, this increases organizations’ threat risks if endpoint devices are not secure,” said Anusha Vaidyanathan, Senior Director of Product Management at Versa. “This partnership enables Versa customers to apply OPSWAT’s MetaDefender Endpoint Security SDK directly within our VersaONE Universal SASE Platform. As businesses continue to operate in cloud and hybrid settings, this joint solution enables IT teams to minimize risk by verifying device security and compliance policies before granting access to secure company systems.”

“Our partnership with Versa validates OPSWAT’s commitment to securing critical infrastructure by integrating advanced endpoint compliance capabilities directly into the VersaONE Universal SASE Platform,” said Hamid Karimi, Vice President of Technical Alliances and OEM at OPSWAT. “With OPSWAT MetaDefender Endpoint Security SDK, Versa customers can confidently ensure device compliance and security before network access, providing better defense against today’s evolving cybersecurity threats.”

The MetaDefender SDK is a versatile, cross-platform, and modular framework that serves as a powerful endpoint security software development platform. It enables software engineers and technology vendors to develop advanced endpoint security products. Specifically, the SDK’s Device Compliance Module allows software engineers to implement features for a wide range of applications, including device posture assessment and detection of potentially unwanted applications. This empowers them to deliver enhanced secure remote access, compliance, network access control, remote support, and other critical capabilities to their end customers.

The Versa SASE Client, now with OPSWAT enhancements, is currently available as a core component of the Versa Universal SASE Platform.

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Cyber Security

Sophos Boosts Firewall with New Protection and Incident Response Features

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Sophos has announced a significant update to its Sophos Firewall software, introducing enhanced protection and incident response capabilities. This update notably includes Sophos NDR Essential, a new feature now available free of charge to all customers holding an XStream Protection license for Sophos Firewall.

This integration empowers Sophos Firewall with two dedicated artificial intelligence (AI) engines specifically designed to detect both malware communications and those utilizing algorithmically generated domain names. This advanced functionality, derived from the Sophos Network Detection and Response (NDR) probe, aims to identify sophisticated malware communications even if they are previously unknown or not yet indexed. It serves as a powerful complement to the Active Threat Response capabilities already embedded within Sophos firewalls.

Chris McCormack, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sophos

Addressing the technical demands of such advanced detection, Chris McCormack, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sophos, explained the strategic approach, “NDR traffic analysis requires substantial processing power. That’s why we’ve adopted a new approach by deploying an NDR solution in Sophos Cloud to offload the heaviest tasks from the firewall.” This cloud-centric design ensures optimal performance without burdening the firewall’s on-device resources.

Beyond network detection, the update also brings significant improvements to connectivity and user authentication. Sophos Connect now integrates EntraID for Single Sign-On (SSO). This new feature for the VPN client, bundled with Sophos Firewall, is set to enhance both the security and user experience for SSL and IPsec VPN connections. The integration with EntraID (Azure AD) enables users to authenticate and leverage multi-factor authentication for both Sophos Connect and access to the user portal hosted by the firewall, streamlining secure access.

Further VPN-related enhancements include:

  • Improved user interface and usability: Connection types have been renamed for greater clarity, with “site-to-site” now referred to as “policy-based” and tunnel interfaces as “route-based,” making configurations more intuitive.
  • Dynamic validation of the IP address pool: For VPN connections (SSL VPN, IPsec, L2TP, and PPTP), the system now dynamically validates the allocated IP address pool, helping to better resolve potential IP address conflicts.
  • Strict profile enforcement: IPsec profiles now exclude default values to ensure algorithm synchronization, effectively eliminating potential fragmentation of session negotiation packets that could otherwise prevent site-to-site VPN tunnels from being established.
  • Route-based VPN and SD-RED scalability: The system has been optimized to support up to 3,000 simultaneously established tunnels. Specifically, Sophos Firewall solutions can now manage up to 1,000 SD-RED site-to-site tunnels and connect up to 650 concurrent SD-RED devices.

Additional management improvements enhance administrative flexibility and search capabilities:

  • More flexible DHCP Prefix Delegation (IPv6 DHCP-PD): The system now supports a broader range of prefixes, from /48 to /64, improving compatibility with various internet service providers.
  • Router Advertisement (RA) and DHCPv6 server: These features are now enabled by default, simplifying IPv6 network setup.
  • Resizable table columns: The web admin interface continues its adaptation for ultra-wide screens, with many configuration pages now allowing users to resize columns as needed for improved usability.
  • Enhanced object search functionality: The search field within the SD-WAN routing configuration screen now supports more granular criteria, including route name, ID, objects, and object values like IP addresses and domains. Similarly, local ACL rules now also support object name and value searches, extending to content-based searches for more precise results.
  • Default configuration changes: To streamline initial setups, default firewall rules and rule groups previously created during new firewall deployments have been removed. The initial configuration now only includes the default network rule and MTA rules. Furthermore, the default firewall rule group and the default gateway probe for custom gateways are now set to “None” by default.

Sophos continues its commitment to cybersecurity through a “Secure by Design” approach, enhancing the intrinsic security of its firewalls. This methodology involves the containerization of specific features and rigorous integrity checks on critical operating system files using mathematical checksums. Any detected checksum mismatch triggers a potential compromise alert, enabling monitoring teams to proactively identify possible security incidents affecting the firewall OS integrity. This proactive detection allows incident response and development teams to react swiftly to critical security events.

This update is now available for manual download and deployment by customers with any Sophos Firewall equipped with a valid license.

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