Splunk grabs Phantom in biggest-ever acquisition

Big data player shells out $350m on security orchestration, automation and response player

Big-data vendor Splunk has bought cybersecurity specialist Phantom, in a move the San Francisco-based firm claims will cement its position as a dedicated "analytics-driven security company".

Splunk paid $350m (£254m) for fellow Californian company Phantom, which focuses on security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR).

Its founder and CEO Oliver Friedrichs will stay on and report to Haiyan Song, Splunk's general manager of security markets.

Friedrichs welcomed Splunk's takeover offer.

"Sourabh Satish and I founded Phantom to give SOC [Security Operations Center] analysts a powerful advantage over their adversaries, a way to automatically and quickly resolve threats," he said.

"Combining SOAR with the industry's leading big-data platform is a revolutionary advance for security and IT teams and will further cut down the time it takes them to eliminate threats and keep the business running. We are thrilled to empower Splunk customers to solve these important challenges."

Splunk's CEO Doug Merritt added: "Phantom's employees and technology significantly expand and strengthen Splunk's vision for the security nerve centre and for business revolution through IT. Splunk is committed to continuously pushing the limits of technology to help our customers get the answers they need from their data."

The deal is expected to close during the first half of 2018.

Splunk claims to have evolved to become more channel friendly over the past two years, emphasising a "partner-first" approach.

In 2017, it told CRN sister publication Channelnomics Europe that it has seen partner bookings grow by 60 per cent year on year as a result.