British endpoint protection firm Sophos has bought US managed detection and response specialist Rook Security for an undisclosed sum; the fifth cybersecurity industry acquisition in 10 days.
Sophos plans to merge its “synchronised security” technology with Rook Security’s 24-hour-managed detection and response (MDR) service. Sophos will push the MDR service offering out to its 47,000 channel partners across the world.
Oxford-based Sophos has over a million users and operates in over 150 countries. In its last financial year it reported annual revenue of £561 million and saw a subscription revenue growth of 17 percent in 2019 alone.
Joe Levy, Sophos’ CTO, said: “With MDR, Sophos’ channel partners will be able to provide businesses of all sizes with expert services that continuously detect, hunt for and respond to security incidents.”
“Cybercriminals are relentlessly trying to exploit organizations with techniques ranging from tried-and-true phishing emails to the more recent trend of ‘hacker pen-testing’ to find weaknesses in their surface area. As a result, businesses need 24/7 monitoring and management of what is happening on their network, yet many of them do not have the expertise, can’t keep up or don’t have the security teams in-house to optimally configure and manage security around-the-clock.”
Sophos Buys Rook Security
Rook Security was founded in 2008 and is currently headquartered in Indiana.
The company specialises in managed threat detection. It also offers Force; a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) product.
With Rook Security’s MDR programme a company can state what rules and actions it wishes the team at Rook Security to take if they detect a breach in the network. With the user-defined threat classification software operated by Rook Security, all policy and rule decisions are set by each company and these are then followed automatically.
Rook Security CEO J.J. Thompson commented on today’s deal that: “Rook Security provides managed detection and response services to detect and eliminate cyber threats. Through threat hunting and data analytics, Rook Security’s experts rapidly detect and mitigate active attacks.”
“We are excited to bring our experts and service delivery innovation to Sophos, a global leader in next-generation cybersecurity. Together, we can implement faster, more effective threat detection and response capabilities to better protect businesses.”
The deal does comes hot on the heels of last week’s $1.5 billion-worth of cybersecurity industry deals, with four companies changing hands.
