Microsoft in Talks With Cybersecurity Firm Mandiant

Microsoft is in talks to buy Mandiant, a cybersecurity research and incident response firm, which would boost its efforts to protect users from hacks, Bloomberg reported Tuesday (Feb. 8).

While the deal may not go through, according to unnamed sources who spoke to Bloomberg, the acquisition would boost Microsoft’s ability to protect clients and respond to hacking threats.

The software titan bought two smaller cybersecurity companies last year. This month, Microsoft said it had gotten $15 billion in security software sales in 2021 — a 45% boost from last year.

Mandiant recently became a standalone company in 2021 again when FireEye, which acquired it in 2013, sold its security product business for $1.2 billion to a consortium led by Symphony Technology Group. Mandiant’s work has usually been focused on incident response and cyber-intelligence cases.

Last year, Microsoft said ex-Amazon cloud executive Charlie Bell would now be overseeing its security efforts, saying 3,500 employees would be working to safeguard “from the chip to the cloud.”

According to Bloomberg Intelligence’s Anurag Rana, the deal would allow Microsoft to compete more often with companies focused more on security, along with pushing cloud rivals Amazon and Google to pursue their own acquisitions.

“This would be a smart move for Microsoft,” said Rana. “In the future, the cloud with most security features would win.”

Microsoft has also recently reported on hackers backed by China and other countries, saying they’re part of a bigger cohort looking to uncover weaknesses on computer server software.

Read more: Microsoft: Foreign Governments Backing Log4j Hackers

The report says the fact cyberattackers have government backing should show the seriousness of the Log4j’s vulnerability, which reportedly led to over 840,000 attacks on companies in just five days in mid-December.

Security experts have said this could lead to serious attacks, including ransomware.

“The effects of this vulnerability will reverberate for months to come — maybe even years — as we try to close these doors and try to hunt down all the actors who made their way in,” said John Hultquist, vice president of intelligence analysis at Mandiant.