Elain Brown Tech 03.07.2022 23:Mar PM EST

Google Reportedly in Talks to Purchase Mandiant; Cybersecurity Firm's Stock Rises 16%

Google and Microsoft along with other companies are reported to be in talks to acquire the cybersecurity firm Mandiant.

Price Surge as Google Is Set To Acquire Mandiant

The cybersecurity company Mandiant is on the market and Google is in talks of acquiring the company.

After the Google news acquisition broke out, the stock price of Mandiant climbed up to 16% on Monday, March 7. Mandiant has a market cap of $5.26 billion. According to Google Finance, Mandiant's stock price is now at $22.49.

Google is in talks to acquire cybersecurity consulting firm Mandiant. Mandiant is a firm which was responsible for the discovery of the infamous SolarWinds hack two years ago.

Google expressed interest in acquiring Mandiant in efforts to strengthen its cloud computing business. Google's cloud computing generates more than $19 billion in annual revenue, however, it has also been losing billions of dollars.

If Google's multibillion-dollar acquisition effort is successful, it will be the company's second-largest acquisition ever since acquiring Motorola Mobility.

Several employees have privately discussed the need for greater security firepower in order to compete with Microsoft, which provides more secure products for its Azure cloud customers, as well as with Amazon Web Services.

Mandiant is an intelligence and cybersecurity firm. Institutions such as major global organizations, governments, and Fortune 100 companies rely on Mandiant for incident response and general security consulting services, as well as incident management products.

It was previously reported on October 15, 2021 that FireEye Inc. was rebranded to Mandiant Inc. Its Nasdaq ticker name switched from FEYE to MNDT.

This company acquisition would help Google compete with larger rival Microsoft, which is also reportedly interested in purchasing Mandiant.

As reported by CNBC, bids for Mandiant ended in the last week of February.

Microsoft Backs Out in Acquiring Mandiant

Aside from Google, Microsoft also expressed interest in buying Mandiant. However, Microsoft pulled out from the talks of acquisition two weeks ago, according to Seattle Times.

Google and Microsoft are both looking to strengthen their cybersecurity operations. Both tech giants will benefit immensely in acquiring Mandiant, whose services are becoming increasingly important as part of the companies' cloud-computing operations.

According to one of the people familiar with the matter, Microsoft terminated its takeover discussions due to concerns that Mandiant's collection of security businesses was not a good enough strategic fit.

Kevin Mandia, a former United States Air Force officer, founded the company nearly two decades ago, and it has built a reputation for providing incident response services.

Mandiant was acquired by FireEye in 2013. The security-products division of FireEye was sold for $1.2 billion to a consortium led by Symphony Technology Group last year, reestablishing Mandiant as a stand-alone company for the first time in its history.

SolarWinds Hack

The SolarWinds hacking was a massive breach experienced in 2020. Hackers gained access to the systems of SolarWind and introduced malicious code into the company's software system.

SolarWinds has a large number of high-profile clients, and all of which were compromised including Fortune 500 companies and multiple agencies within the United States government. Private companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, and other organizations were also affected.

According to Business Insider, federal investigators and cybersecurity experts believe that the attack was carried out by Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, known as the SVR.