Google to acquire Mandiant for $5.4 billion

Google plans to acquire Mandiant, the cybersecurity firm that uncovered the SolarWinds hack, for $5.4 billion, the tech giant announced Tuesday. 

Mandiant will join Google’s Cloud business following the close of the acquisition, according to the announcement. 

Bloomberg reported Microsoft had reportedly also been interested in Mandiant, but the company pulled out of talks more than a week ago. 

“Organizations around the world are facing unprecedented cybersecurity challenges as the sophistication and severity of attacks that were previously used to target major governments are now being used to target companies in every industry,” Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, said in a statement.  “We look forward to welcoming Mandiant to Google Cloud to further enhance our security operations suite and advisory services, and help customers address their most important security challenges.”

Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia said the company is “thrilled to be joining forces with Google Cloud.” 

“Together, we will deliver expertise and intelligence at scale, changing the security industry,” he said in a statement. 

Mandiant rose to prominence after uncovering the SolarWinds hack in 2020. The cyberattack, one of the largest in U.S. history, compromised computers across the federal government.