Microsoft doesn’t only buy giant gaming companies, and it appears it’s getting ready to bolster its security efforts by acquiring Mandiant, Inc., according to a report from Bloomberg. Mandiant is a cybersecurity research, software and services firm. It was acquired by FireEye in 2013, but Mandiant sold FireEye in 2021, leaving the company to focus on Mandiant Advantage, a “subscription-based SaaS platform designed to augment and automate security response teams,” according to Wikipedia.
Muddying up the waters a bit is another report, from VentureBeat, that Mandiant at the same time it’s talking acquisition with Microsoft, is also partnering with one of Microsoft’s chief rivals in the security incidence response field, SentinelOne. Microsoft competes with both CrowdStrike and SentinelOne, which is part of the reason why a Mandiant acquisition would make sense.
Mandiant’s stock price jumped almost 18% on the Bloomberg news yesterday, after being down some 14% for the year.
We’ll have to wait and see if the Mandiant deal goes through, and how aggressive Microsoft is in competing in this ever more important space.
