Thales Pays $3.6 Billion for Cybersecurity Firm Imperva

French multinational Thales has acquired cybersecurity firm Imperva from owner Thoma Bravo for $3.6 billion.

The deal, announced Tuesday (July 25), is designed to bolster Thales’ digital identity and cybersecurity business improve its data security capabilities and help it enter the attractive application security market. The company said the acquisition will help Thales’ cybersecurity business generate more than $2.6 billion in revenue.

“With this acquisition, we are seizing a unique opportunity to accelerate our cybersecurity capabilities and are taking an important step towards our ambition to build a world-class global cybersecurity integrated player, providing a comprehensive portfolio of products and services,” Patrick Caine, Thales’ CEO, said in a news release. The deal should close in early 2024, pending regulatory approvals.

“We have tremendous respect for Imperva’s innovative application and data security offerings. Imperva and Thales share the same vision and the same DNA.”

Thoma Bravo, a private equity group that invests in software companies, acquired Imperva in 2018 in a deal valued at $2.1 billion.

The deal comes at a time when companies are under increased threat from fraudsters, thanks to the lightspeed advances of technologies like generative artificial intelligence (AI).

“After all, with every phase shift of technological innovation, there emerge opportunities for fraudsters to find new attack vectors and target future-fit vulnerabilities,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this month.

“In a landscape where fraud is everywhere, it is not enough for firms to reactively play whack-a-mole — enterprises must now increasingly take a multilayered approach to stymying cybercriminals before they ever reach the gates.”

Adding to the risk, is that untrained staff, outdated legacy processes and a growing distribution of data and computing resources are all combining to increasingly compromise enterprise security, establishing new layers of operational complexity to defend.

“While they aren’t glamourous, a sound technical infrastructure paired with strong processes carried out by well-trained employees, re-prioritizing compliance and control programs, and the integration of automated, end-to-end anti-fraud solutions have never been more important for businesses,” PYMNTS wrote.

Fraud-related costs now equal 2% to 5% of organizations’ yearly revenues, as reported in the “FinTech Risk Management Playbook: Combating B2B Payments Fraud,” a collaboration between PYMNTS and nsKnox.

However, the use of new technology works both ways, and companies need to take advantage of new tools like AI before scammers use it to take advantage of them.

“When you think about financial services, the [immediate use case of AI] is obviously fraud protection,” Jeremiah Lotz, managing vice president, digital and data at PSCU, told PYMNTS in an interview earlier this year.