FireEye sells up to RSA owner for $1.2 billion in shock move.
Company to keep Mandiant.
FireEye has agreed to sell its product business to private equity fund Symphony Technology Group (STG) for $1.2 billion in cash. FireEye will retain control of Mandiant’s "controls-agnostic software and services." STG (which bought RSA for $2b in 2020) will get the FireEye brand, along with its network, email, endpoint, and cloud security products and "related security management and orchestration platform."
The deal comes less than six months after FireEye disclosed that it had been hacked and its Red Team toolkit stolen. ("The stolen tools range from simple scripts used for automating reconnaissance to entire frameworks", the company said on December 8, 2020.) FireEye names over 10,100 customers across 103 countries, including more than 50 percent of the Forbes Global 2000.
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Revealing the deal on June 2, FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia said: "Mandiant will consist of Consulting, Managed Defense, and the solutions delivered through our Mandiant Advantage platform, including Threat Intelligence, Validation, and Automated Defense. I will remain CEO, and the leadership team will include many of our current executives, including John Watters, who rejoined us as President and Chief Operating Officer earlier this year.
He added: "The two organizations will continue to share on critical information, with bi-directional sharing of threat intelligence and product telemetry to build and preserve competitive advantages that benefit the customers of both businesses. A joint reseller agreement will enable the FireEye and Mandiant sales teams to continue offering our integrated solutions. We have also established cooperative processes to make certain customer data is secure. In these and other ways, we will ensure that both parties have the resources necessary to deliver on – and exceed – customer expectations."
Publicly listed FireEye bought threat intel and incident response firm Mandiant for $1 billion in 2014. It has since made
The Company is "committed to building and preserving a strong partnership and at closing will enter into agreements designed to maximize the benefits for joint customers" it noted. "These agreements include a reseller and market cooperation agreement, a strategic collaboration agreement, and a transition services agreement. Customers and partners can expect to receive the full benefit of these agreements as the companies share technology, telemetry, threat intelligence, and expertise.
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