After an aborted attempt last year, Google is set to acquire cloud security platform Wiz.
The tech giant announced Tuesday (March 18) it would pay $32 billion to purchase Wiz, which will join Google Cloud once the deal — said to be Google’s largest — becomes final.
“This acquisition represents an investment by Google Cloud to accelerate two large and growing trends in the AI era: improved cloud security and the ability to use multiple clouds,” the company said in a news release.
“Both cybersecurity and cloud computing are rapidly growing industries with a vast range of solutions. The increased role of AI, and adoption of cloud services, have dramatically changed the security landscape for customers, making cybersecurity increasingly important in defending against emergent risks and protecting national security.”
According to the release, Wiz’s security platform connects to “all major clouds and code environments” to help safeguard against cybersecurity incidents. Google said Wiz’s products will continue to work and be available on all major clouds, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud platforms.
The announcement follows news accounts from Monday that Google and Wiz were getting close to a deal, though the final price tag was a little higher than the $30 billion figure reported.
Wiz had reportedly rejected a $23 billion acquisition bid by Google last summer, CNBC reported, citing an internal memo from Wiz Co-founder Assaf Rappaport.
“Saying no to such humbling offers is tough,” the memo said.
Writing on the company blog Tuesday, Rappaport said the deal will allow Wiz to bolster its cloud security mission.
“Cloud is more important than ever, and attackers aren’t slowing down,” he wrote. “They are already using the most innovative technologies to move faster. We see it as our mission to do whatever we can to accelerate the Wiz vision, and we truly believe this announcement will enable us to do so.”
In other cybersecurity news, PYMNTS wrote last week about the growing threat of scammers using both high-tech and low-tech methods to target potential victims.
“The threat environment is not solely made up of tens-of-thousands-strong botnets straight out of a science fiction movie,” that report said. “Fraudsters are using the old-fashioned postal service for some of their scams. By using stolen personally identifiable information (PII) pilfered from some of 2024’s record data breaches, criminal groups are now sending select high-ranking executives fraudulent snail mail.”
