Inside FireEye’s $200M Cybersecurity Firm Buy

FireEye announced Wednesday (Jan. 20) the acquisition of global threat intelligence company iSIGHT Partners, the purchase of which closed on Jan. 14 and came to approximately $200 million in cash.

As a result of the acquisition, FireEye says it will now offer the “world’s most advanced and comprehensive private cyberthreat intelligence operation.” The company plans to soon offer new threat intelligence products to both new and existing customers based on each one’s specific organizational threat profile.

“This acquisition extends FireEye’s intelligence lead with an offering no one else in the industry can match,” David DeWalt, FireEye CEO and chairman of the board, said in a press release. “The biggest mistake most people make is thinking threat intelligence is a collection of virus definitions in a shared database. Forward-looking security organizations — from governments to the private sector — know threat intelligence is the key to establishing a robust security posture tuned for the threats targeting each organization. As the cyberoperations become integrated with physical, geopolitical and competitive conflict, an intelligence-led approach to security will be key in detecting the most sophisticated threats and responding to them quickly and effectively.”

Both FireEye and iSIGHT Partners offer intelligence-led security models, which provide organizations with deeper insight into attacks, attackers and attack methodologies. This information can empower companies to better detect, address and mitigate cyberattacks and data breaches.

The statement issued by FireEye confirmed that customers of iSIGHT Partners will continue to have access to iSIGHT products. The firm’s cyberintelligence capabilities include its monitoring intelligence network, which tracks cyberthreat development and thousands of threat actors on a global scale.

“Until now, only governments and large enterprises have been able to achieve intelligence-led security, but with the combined resources of FireEye, Mandiant and iSIGHT, we can make the benefits of intelligence-led security available to a broad range of organizations,” John Watters, iSIGHT founder and CEO prior to the acquisition, stated. “We’re bringing iSIGHT together with intelligence teams inside of FireEye and Mandiant that are among the best in the industry, fusing victim-based intelligence with attacker-based, over-the-horizon insights derived from iSIGHT’s global cyberthreat ecosystem. When coupled with the technology and services of FireEye and Mandiant, this intelligence capability is a game-changer for the industry and enables an intelligence-led security model that other security companies will be hard-pressed to replicate.”