Google has released a press update that it is going to acquire security firm Mandiant for $5.4 billion and it is going to be an all-cash deal to close by this year-end. Highly placed sources say that the tech giant is planning to integrate cyber security firmly into its Google Cloud services in the coming months and will address most of the threats existing in the cyber landscape.
“As hackers are launching sophisticated cyberattacks, governments across the world are facing severe security challenges and are observed to be spreading to the private sector”, said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud.
He added that Mandiant’s inclusion in the Google Cloud Platform (GCP)will assist customers in addressing real-time security challenges across multi-cloud and on-premise environments.
Founded in the year 2004 by Kevin Mandia, the security firm offered solutions to combat cyberattacks to date. Now, after the acquisition, the company’s talent pool will deliver their expertise and intelligence to customers of GCP.
In another statement released by Alphabet Inc’s subsidiary, Russian-funded hacking group FancyBear was seen launching a phishing campaign on Ukrainians. It is actually an attack launched in combined form by the intelligence of Moscow, in association with the cyber arm of the Belarusian government.
Google’s Threat Analysis Group stated that Fancy Bear aka APT28 was seen sending malware-laced emails to Ukrainian media company UkrNet. The incident came to light while the researchers were tracking the whereabouts of Ghostwriter/UNC1151, a threat group from Belarus.
Since the start of the Russian war with Ukraine, threat actors, especially those backed by state intelligence, launched cyber attacks. Their motive is to simply exploit the war situation to steal classical data and then pass it to servers operating in North Korea, Russian Federation, and China.
Google says that the activity started with China’s Mustang Panda hacking group and was picked by APT28 from early this month. And as there seems to be no end to the war, more such groups of threat actors are said to use the situation and send attachments that are malicious or are riddled by data-stealing malware.
