At a glance.
- The Purple Guys acquires Advantex and Herrod Technology.
- Fianu Labs emerges from stealth.
- Wiz considers making a bid for SentinelOne.
- The Institute for Security and Technology's Blueprint for Ransomware Defense.
Mergers and acquisitions.
Louisiana-headquartered managed IT services provider The Purple Guys has acquired IT companies Advantex and Herrod Technology, both based in Texas. The Purple Guys stated, "These acquisitions further expand the company’s presence in key Texas markets, marking a strategic entry into Houston and building density and added service capabilities in the broader Dallas metroplex."
Honeywell has reached an agreement to acquire Israeli OT security firm SCADAfence. Tank Terminals says the acquisition "will expand Honeywell’s Cybersecurity Center of Excellence in Tel Aviv."
Parsons Corporation has acquired Maryland-based edge computing and cybersecurity firm Sealing Technologies, Defense Daily reports. Carey Smith, chairwoman, president, and CEO of Parsons, stated, "The addition of SealingTech is a natural extension of our growth strategy, adding critical, mission-ready solutions for our Department of Defense and intelligence community customers. SealingTech’s defensive cyber capabilities complement our leading offensive cyber capabilities and increase our share in the full-spectrum cyber operations market, which is expected to receive more government funding because of accelerating and evolving cyber threats."
Owl Cyber Defense, a "provider of hardware-enforced cyber security solutions for military, national security, intelligence and critical infrastructure organizations," has acquired Big Bad Wolf Security, a company that focuses on "next generation cloud infrastructure security for government and commercial applications." Both companies are based in Maryland. Owl said in a press release, "BBWS’s technology accelerates expansion of Owl’s current product portfolio into cloud native form (e.g., Cloud CDS) and enables expansion into new solutions by bringing technology that provides deep insights into the Identity and Access Management (IAM) configuration of AWS and other major cloud providers."
Israeli cybersecurity optimization firm CYE has acquired Baseline, Cyberillium's vulnerability analysis platform. CYE says it "will incorporate Baseline's capabilities into its Hyver platform, enabling automated attack route creation and prioritization based on Baseline novel context-aware algorithms."
Investments and exits.
Maryland-headquartered software governance automation startup Fianu Labs has emerged from stealth with $2 million in seed funding from DataTribe. The company stated, "Fianu’s platform captures evidence across the DevSecOps toolchain mapped to internal policy during real-time, continuous audits against established risk controls and compliance frameworks. Each software release is accompanied by a Software Bill of Attestations (SBOA) designed to transmit immutable, audit-worthy evidence."
Executive moves.
Workspot has appointed Brad Tompkins as President and Chief Operating Officer. Tompkins most recently served as Chief Revenue Officer at IGEL.
KnowBe4 has named Hein Hellemons as its Chief Revenue Officer. Hellemons most recently served as president and CRO for SecurityScorecard.
Expel has appointed Yonni Shelmerdine as Chief Product Officer. Shelmerdine previously served as Vice President of Product Management, EDR and XDR, at SentinelOne.
GoTo has appointed Peter Mahoney as Chief Marketing Officer.
Contrast Security has hired Julie Giannini as Chief Customer Officer.
Onyxia Cyber has added Rinki Sethi, VP and CISO at BILL.com, to its advisory board.
Fortunes of commerce.
Bloomberg reports that cloud security startup Wiz is considering making a bid for SentinelOne, whose market value is approximately $4.9 billion. Bloomberg notes that this "would represent a rare move by a startup to buy a large listed company." CTech adds that "Wiz, with about $900 million in its coffers today from the capital raisings it has conducted since its establishment, will have to raise a significant amount to finance such a move."
The Institute for Security and Technology's Blueprint for Ransomware Defense.
The Institute for Security and Technology (IST) has examined the effectiveness of its Blueprint for Ransomware Defense, released in August 2022: "[W]e turned to cyber insurance provider Resilience, who shared information pertaining to approximately 100 ransomware claims. Out of these claims, Resilience was able to pinpoint a critical point of security failure in 38 instances. We then mapped each point of failure to a specific Blueprint Safeguard, where applicable, and determined whether or not the Safeguard, if implemented properly, could have prevented the attack. We found that at least 68% of all attacks in this particular data set could have been prevented."