Google completes $5.4bn Mandiant acquisition

Mandiant retain its brand and join Google Cloud

Google has completed its $5.4bn acquisition of Mandiant as part of plans to boost its cloud security capabilities.

The deal, which was first announced back in March, will see Mandiant retain its brand and join Google Cloud.

Together they will deliver an end-to-end security operations suite with "even greater capabilities to support customers across their cloud and on-premise environments", a statement said.

Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, said buying Mandiant will help organisations reinvent security to meet requirements.

"The completion of this acquisition will enable us to deliver a comprehensive and best-in-class cybersecurity solution," he said.

"We believe this acquisition creates incredible value for our customers and the security industry at large. Together, Google Cloud and Mandiant will help reinvent how organizations protect themselves, as well as detect and respond to threats."

Google saw off reported competition from rival Microsoft for the acquisition, with it reported the company was in talks over a potential deal.

The deal will provide Google Cloud with threat intelligence and incident response services from Mandiant.

Kurian said the goal is to democratise security operations with access to the best threat intelligence and built-in threat detections and responses.

"Combining Google Cloud's existing security portfolio with Mandiant's leading cyber threat intelligence will allow us to deliver a security operations suite to help enterprises globally stay protected at every stage of the security lifecycle," Kurian said.

Mandiant was acquired by FireEye in 2013 for a deal in excess of $1bn, but its security product business was then sold to a consortium led by Symphony Technology Group for $1.2bn in June last year.

CEO Kevin Mandia said Google's acquisition will create an "incredible opportunity".

"Mandiant is driven by a mission to make every organisation secure from cyber threats and confident in their readiness," he added.

"Combining our 18 years of threat intelligence and incident response experience with Google Cloud's security expertise presents an incredible opportunity to deliver with the speed and scale that the security industry needs."