More Signal. Less Noise.

V4 | Issue 17 | 4.27.22

Twitter accepts Musk’s $44 billion bid. SonarSource raises $412 million. US Cyber Command awards $60 million contract to Sealing Technologies.

Summary

By the CyberWire staff

At a glance.

Twitter accepts Musk’s $44 billion bid.
SonarSource raises $412 million.
US Cyber Command awards $60 million contract to Sealing Technologies.

Mergers and acquisitions.

Twitter has accepted Elon Musk’s $44 billion deal to take over the company and go private. Musk says that he “wants to make Twitter a better user experience, in part by adding new features and fighting spam.”

Columbia, Maryland-based cyber exposure company Tenable has signed an agreement to acquire external attack surface management (EASM) company Bit Discovery. The company said, “Combining Tenable’s market-leading Cyber Exposure solutions with Bit Discovery’s EASM capabilities will provide customers with a differentiated 360-degree view of the modern attack surface – both inside out and outside in – to identify and eliminate areas of known and unknown security risk.”

Investments and exits.

Switzerland-based clean code platform SonarSource announced that it has raised $412 million from new and existing investors, led by Advent International and General Catalyst, with existing investor Insight Partners participating, as well as Permira’s Growth Opportunities Fund. The company stated that it will use the funding to “grow its go-to-market team globally as the company drives toward $1 billion in revenue.”

Israeli web application protection company Source Defense has raised $27 million in Series B funding, led by Springtide Ventures with all existing investors also participating, including Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), AllegisCyber Capital, Global Brain, Connecticut Innovations, Inc., NightDragon, LLC, and Capital One Ventures. Dan Dinnar, CEO of Source Defense, stated, “Organizations spend a lot of time and effort to make sure their websites are well designed, coded, and performing before going live, yet so many of them know so little about what actually happens on their website once it leaves the server-side and reaches the visitor’s browser (client-side), even though it is one of their most important assets both financially and brand-wise. Source Defense not only identified this as a major and growing issue very early on but partnered with some of the world’s largest and most trusted brands to put a real-time halt to any attempts at digital skimming, formjacking, clickjacking, ad injection, PII theft, and content defacement.”

Maryland-based Privacy Enhancing Technology company Enveil has raised $25 million in Series B funding, led by USAA with contributions from existing investors, including Mastercard, Capital One Ventures, C5 Capital, DataTribe, In-Q-Tel, Cyber Mentor Fund, Bloomberg Beta, GC&H, and 1843 Capital. Ellison Anne Williams, Founder and CEO of Enveil, said, "We leverage breakthroughs in Privacy Enhancing Technologies to bridge the gap and unlock the data value the market demands. We’re excited that this investment will accelerate our ability to take our proven capabilities to a broader range of industries, regions, and use cases."

Israeli portfolio management startup SeeMetrics has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Jonathan Legh’s Work-Bench venture capital outfit, with additional investments coming from 8VC, AGP, Essence VC, K5 Global and Verissimo. The company describes itself as a “security portfolio management platform that consolidates all metric data from across the CISO organization, helping security teams monitor the performance and efficiency of their portfolio.”

South American startup Strike Security has raised $5.4 million in seed funding led by Greyhound Capital, with participation from FJ Labs, Canary, NXTP, VentureFriends, Magma Partners, Latitud and Orok Ventures. The company’s founder said, “the plan is to build a plug-and-play platform for small businesses to purchase access to some of the best white-hat hackers in the world for what Strike Security calls ‘perpetual pentesting.’”

Executive moves.

Alert Logic has named Onkar Birk the Alert Logic Managing Director for HelpSystems. Birk previously served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer for Alert Logic until the company’s acquisition by HelpSystems.

Tetrate has announced that Sanjay Poonen will join the company’s board of advisors.

Conquest Cyber has announced the addition of Jason Weiss as the company’s new Chief Software Officer.

Shift5 has announced the addition of Alexander Gates as the company’s Chief Research Officer.

Palantir has hired the former director of AI for NHSX, Indra Joshi.

Timothy Howard, the prosecutor who helped bring down the Silk Road dark web marketplace, is now joining the Freshfields law firm focusing on cybersecurity and cryptocurrency.

Huawei has named Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou as the company’s rotating chairwoman.

authID has named Annie Pham Chief Financial Officer, following the planned retirement of Stuart Stoller.

Blackpoint Cyber has appointed J. Chris Wilkerson as VP of Blackpoint RISK and Head of Insurance.

LastPass has announced the hire of a new Chief Executive Officer, Karim Toubba.

Fusion Risk Management has appointed Eric Jackson as Chief Product Officer.

Titania has announced the appointment of Claire Clark as the Vice President of Engineering.

SafeBreach has announced the appointment of Mor Lakritz as Chief Financial Officer.

Companies in the news.

US Cyber Command has awarded a nearly $60 million contract to Sealing Technologies to conduct cyber defense operations abroad. The award is for “hunt-forward” operations, meaning that teams will be sent from the Cyber National Mission Force to foreign nations to hunt for threats on their networks at the invitation of host nations. The company stated, “SealingTech’s kit is designed to be modular so it can be configured for mission requirements and optimized for enhanced performance characteristics.”

Selected Reading

Marketplace

Cybersecurity M&A Activity to Continue; Growth Funding to be More Conservative (SecurityWeek) According to Progress Partners’ Market Report: Cybersecurity Q1 2022, M&A activity leapt from $27.5 billion in 2020 to $70.4 billion in 2021. By the end of Q1 2022, it had already reached almost $27 billion.

Israel's Spyware Sector Will Survive the NSO Pegasus Scandal (World Politics Review) The controversy over the international trade in digital surveillance tools peaked last year, when several Israeli firms were accused of selling sophisticated spyware to authoritarian states. But given its importance for Israel’s economy and security, the cybersecurity sector will continue to enjoy strong government backing.

Microsoft's $15 Billion cybersecurity business is growing fast (OnMSFT.com) Last year, Microsoft disclosed how much their software company’s security business was worth which was totaling $10 billion in annual revenue and was “up more

Why CrowdStrike Stock Was Falling Today (The Motley Fool) A broad sell-off in tech stocks hammered the cybersecurity company.

ZeroFox Expands Canadian Presence, Delivering Over 60% Year-Over-Year Increase in Impersonation and Malicious Content Takedowns for Canadian Customers (Yahoo Finance) Expansion includes new partnerships to deliver external cybersecurity solutions to Canadian enterprisesWASHINGTON, April 27, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ZeroFox, a leading external cybersecurity provider, today announces new disruption research and expanded partnerships to serve Canadian enterprises. A new partnership with Quick Intelligence will extend critical threat intelligence, digital risk protection and adversary disruption services to Canadian enterprises, building on ZeroFox’s existing Can

Google's $5 billion Mandiant acquisition just hit another snag (TechRadar) The search giant wants to bolster its cybersecurity credentials by buying Mandiant

Elon Musk pledges to 'authenticate all humans' as he buys Twitter for $44 billion. Here's how the site may change now that he's in charge. (Business Insider) Tesla billionaire Elon Musk has big plans for changes at the influential social media company, from authenticating all humans to banning spam bots.

Buying Twitter, Elon Musk Will Face Reality of His Free-Speech Talk (New York Times) Tech’s big shots have learned again and again that free speech isn’t so simple. What happens when Mr. Musk owns Twitter?

Elon Musk spent nearly 7 times Jack Dorsey's net worth to buy Twitter (Newsweek) Dorsey, who resigned as CEO last fall, has a net worth of $6.6 billion, according to Forbes. Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion.

Analysis: Musk tears up buyout playbook with $46.5 billion Twitter financing (Reuters) It is the biggest acquisition financing ever put forward for one person. Elon Musk is doing it his way.

4 ways Twitter could change under Elon Musk. (New York Times) The Tesla chief executive has criticized Twitter’s content moderation policies and advocated open-source algorithms.

Can Musk deliver on his vision for Twitter? Questions remain (AP NEWS) Tesla CEO Elon Musk stands to be the next owner of Twitter, having pledged roughly $44 billion to buy the social platform and take it private. Assuming that happens, next up on his agenda will be planning how to fulfill his promises to develop new Twitter features, open its algorithm to public inspection and defeat “spambots” on the service that mimic real users.

Twitter Employees Search for Answers as Musk Takeover Becomes Reality (New York Times) Workers say they have been left largely in the dark about what a sale to the billionaire will mean for them and their shares in the company.

How Elon Musk Won Twitter (Wired) His weeks-long pursuit of the company has resulted in a $44 billion deal. But how did it happen, and what the hell comes next?

Bravo, Thoma Bravo (Strategy of Security) A deeper look into Thoma Bravo, the audacious private equity firm that's reshaping the cybersecurity ecosystem.

Huawei Pumps $22 Billion Into R&D to Beat U.S. Sanctions (Yahoo) Few companies devote more of their revenue to research than Huawei Technologies Co., for which developing new technologies is a matter of thwarting crippling U.S. trade and investment sanctions.Most Read from BloombergElon Musk Lands Deal to Take Twitter Private for $44 BillionUkraine Latest: Lavrov Warns of Nuclear War; Biden Names Envoy‘Weak Sauce’: Elon Musk’s 2018 Feud With Saudi Fund RevealedAnger in Japan as Ukraine Links Emperor Hirohito to Adolf HitlerKetanji Brown Jackson

Why London was the right place to take Darktrace public (Times) I am often asked why we listed Darktrace in London. As a business founded and headquartered in Cambridge, the UK felt like the natural place for our initial pub

Twitter’s Board Is Said to Seriously Consider Elon Musk’s Bid (New York Times) Twitter’s 11-member board met on Sunday morning to discuss Mr. Musk’s offer to buy the company and take it private.

WSJ News Exclusive | Twitter in Talks to Strike a Deal With Elon Musk (Wall Street Journal) Twitter is in discussions to sell itself to Elon Musk and could finalize a deal as soon as this week, people familiar with the matter said.

One year after KnowBe4 went public at a $1B valuation, is it still considered a unicorn? (Tampa Bay Business Journal) The cybersecurity company debuted as KNBE on the Nasdaq one year ago.

Cybersecurity firm Darktrace is enjoying rapid growth, but the competition could prove too much (MoneyWeek) Darktrace, an AI-driven cybersecurity firm, is growing fast and beating its own earnings projections. But is it an undervalued growth stock or a disaster waiting to happen? Rupert Hargreaves investigates.

Fortinet to Seek Hldr Approval for 5-for-1 Share Split (MarketWatch) By Stephen Nakrosis Cybersecurity company Fortinet Inc. on Friday said it will seek shareholder approval to implement a five-for-one forward stock split of...

Is cybersecurity talent shortage a myth? (Help Net Security) In this interview for Help Net Security, Ricardo Villadiego, CEO at Lumu, explains why he thinks the cybersecurity talent shortage is a myth.

Palantir's poaching of former NHSX AI chief branded “scandalous” (IT PRO) The controversial tech company is currently competing for a £240 million NHS federated data platform (FDP) contract

U.S. Air Force Academy Awards $3.1M Contract to Telos Corporation (Telos Corporation) Ashburn, Va. – April 22, 2022 – Telos® Corporation (NASDAQ: TLS), a leading provider of cyber, cloud and enterprise security solutions for the world’s most security-conscious organizations, today announced that it was awarded a $3.1M contract for the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) Wi-Fi network expansion program. Under this contract, Telos will upgrade and... Read more

Elon Musk Says He Has $46.5 Billion in Funding for Twitter Bid (Wall Street Journal) The financing commitments lend credibility to what had looked more like a personal lark than a bona fide takeover play.

ICS Exploits Earn Hackers $400,000 at Pwn2Own Miami 2022 (SecurityWeek) Pwn2Own Miami 2022, a hacking contest focusing on industrial control systems (ICS), has come to an end, with contestants earning a total of $400,000 for their exploits.

Meta Offers Rewards for Flaws Allowing Attackers to Bypass Integrity Checks (SecurityWeek) Facebook parent company Meta today announced that its bug bounty program will cover vulnerabilities that can be exploited to bypass integrity safeguards.

Veracode Named a Leader in the 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Application Security Testing for Ninth Consecutive Time (Veracode) Also recognized as a 2021 Customers’ Choice for Application Security Testing

Products, Services, and Solutions

VuWall Introduces its Application Server to Securely Share and Control Websites and Applications on Video Walls (VuWall) VuWall's Newest Addition Delivers Unmatched Versatility and Scalability to Video Wall Deployments in AV-Over-IP Environments

Comodo Security Solutions partners with UAE-based Distilogix (Gulf Business) Both companies aim to assist organisations in moving to a modern and full-proof approach to protecting themselves from cyberattacks and security breaches.

Akamai unveils Linode Managed Database to help developers reduce risk and increase efficiency (Help Net Security) Akamai Technologies launched a managed database service powered by Linode with support for MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, and MongoDB.

Trend Micro Launches New Security Platform (Dark Reading) An ecosystem of native and third-party integrations provides visibility and control across the entire attack surface.

SoftBank Corp. Selects Aryaka for its International SD-WAN Service, SD-CORE(aryaka) (Business Wire) Aryaka®, the leader in fully managed SD-WAN and SASE, today announced SoftBank Corp. (TOKYO: 9434, “SoftBank”) has selected Aryaka’s technology for it

Cynerio and Securonix Announce Partnership for Advanced Medical Device (PRWeb) Cynerio, the leading provider of healthcare IoT cybersecurity, today announced a new partnership with Securonix, a leader in Next-Gen SIEM, to provide hospitals an

Telos Corporation Announces Xacta CMMC Offering in Microsoft Azure Marketplace (Telos Corporation) Ashburn, Va. – April 27, 2022 — Telos® Corporation (NASDAQ: TLS), a leading provider of cyber, cloud and enterprise security solutions for the world’s most security-conscious organizations, announced today its new Xacta® 360 Lite for Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Virtual Machine Infrastructure (VMI) offering to automate and streamline the activities required for CMMC assessment.... Read more

Inmarsat Debuts New Cyber Maritime Offering for Fleet Xpress (Via Satellite) Inmarsat is launching a new service designed to provide greater cyber protection to its maritime customers. The product, Fleet Secure Unified Threat

Sequitur Labs Collaborates with Lenovo to Protect AI Models at the Edge (Yahoo) Sequitur Labs’ EmSPARK Security Suite to be incorporated into Lenovo ThinkEdge offerings

Fidelis Cybersecurity Active XDR Platform Expands to Open XDR (Business Wire) Fidelis Cybersecurity, the industry innovator in Active eXtended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions trusted by Fortune 100 firms and government or

Telecom breach and attack simulation(BAS) platform : ACE (SecurityGen) ACE is a telecom cybersecurity platform for network breach detection and network attack protection. This breach and attack simulation platform enables 5G network security, signalling security, gtp security, ss7 attack, ddos attack prevention etc.

People

HelpSystems Appoints Onkar Birk as Alert Logic Managing Director (Alert Logic) Alert Logic today announced that Onkar Birk has been named Alert Logic Managing Director for HelpSystems. In his new role, Birk will oversee the Alert Logic business as it continues providing the most innovative managed detection and response (MDR) solution to security-strapped organizations. He previously served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer for Alert Logic until the company’s acquisition by HelpSystems in March 2022.

National Security Veteran Alexander Gates Joins Shift5 as Chief Research Officer (Shift5) Cybersecurity Leader from Department of Energy, National Security Agency to Drive OT Cybersecurity Threat Intelligence Amid Era of Cyber-Physical Threats

Conquest Cyber announces executive team addition, Jason Weiss as Chief Software Officer (EIN News) Conquest Cyber has continued the expansion of top-tier executive growth with the addition of a new Chief Software Officer.

Huawei names Meng Wanzhou as rotating chair (iTWire) Telecom giant Huawei has named chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who returned to China in 2021 after nearly three years of detention in Canada, as its rotating chairwoman, according to the company’s website. The daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, Meng will act as the company’s head honcho...

Silk Road Prosecutor Jumps to Freshfields Cyber, Crypto Group (Bloomberg Law) Timothy Howard, the Manhattan prosecutor who helped bring down dark web marketplace Silk Road, is joining the Freshfields law firm to focus on cybersecurity and cryptocurrency.

Shift5 hires NSA, Energy cyber vet as research chief (Washington Technology) The operational technology-focused outfit is positioning for growth in defense and transportation markets.

Former NHS AI leader joins US spy-tech firm Palantir (Register) Move coincides with NHS England's procurement of a far-reaching data platform

authID.ai Names Annie Pham Chief Financial Officer; Stuart Stoller to Retire (GlobeNewswire News Room) Annie Pham to Assume CFO Role with 20+ Years of Corporate Finance Experience. Stuart Stoller to Retire after Decades of Corporate Service. LONG...

SafeBreach Welcomes Mor Lakritz As Chief Financial Officer (PR Newswire) SafeBreach, the pioneer in breach and attack simulation (BAS), today announced the addition of industry veteran Mor Lakritz to its executive...

Titania | Titania Strengthens Leadership and Innovation with Appointment of New Vice President of Engineering (RealWire) New appointment signifies growth and commitment to lead in development of software that automates accurate network configuration assessments and delivers continuous risk and remediation prioritized assurances

Eric Jackson joins Fusion Risk Management as CPO (Help Net Security) Fusion Risk Management announced it has appointed Eric Jackson as Chief Product Officer (CPO) drive product strategy and innovation.

LastPass Appoints Karim Toubba Chief Executive Officer (GlobeNewswire News Room) Security Industry Veteran Brings Proven Record of Innovation and Growth to LastPass...

Blackpoint Cyber Welcomes J. Chris Wilkerson, VP of Blackpoint RISK & Head of Insurance (Business Wire) Blackpoint Cyber, a leading technology-focused cybersecurity company, announced a key expansion in its cyber insurance leadership team. The company ap