Proofpoint has announced its plans to acquire Emerging Threats for approximately $40 million in cash and stock.
Emerging Threats uses an automated collection and analysis system, along with a team of expert threat researchers, to produce actionable threat intelligence for detecting, blocking and remediating advanced cyberattacks. Its systems gather millions of malware samples and other global threat indicators per day to develop intelligence about advanced cybercriminal malware distribution and command and control (C&C) infrastructure. This system then collects, validates, filters and prioritizes malware samples.
Proofpoint will integrate Emerging Threats' capabilities with its existing Targeted Attack Protection and Threat Response security solutions. This acquisition combines Emerging Threats' threat intelligence with Proofpoint's existing big data platform and threat analytics systems for automated incident response and remediation for organizations worldwide.
"Better cyberattack intelligence enables better cybersecurity," said Gary Steele, CEO at Proofpoint, in a statement. "Proofpoint's market-leading advanced threat detection and response products for email and social media security and compliance will be further enhanced by pairing them with Emerging Threats' deep research and intelligence capabilities. We believe that the combination of Proofpoint and Emerging Threats provides the most timely, actionable end-to-end attack intelligence and protection available in the industry."
As part of the acquisition, Emerging Threats' team of threat researchers, software engineers and sales personnel will join Proofpoint's team, continuing to operate from the Emerging Threats headquarters in Indianapolis.
"Emerging Threats has a proven track record of effectively detecting and responding to today's advanced cyberattacks," said Ken Gramley, Emerging Threats chief executive officer, who will become vice president of Emerging Threats for Proofpoint upon consummation of the acquisition. "Our suite of threat intelligence products delivers actionable, correlated threat intelligence necessary to security teams. We're excited to integrate with Proofpoint's solutions to bring our industry-leading advanced threat detection and remediation capabilities to an even larger market."