Mimecast has announced its acquisition of security software developer Solebit for approximately $88 million in cash.
Solebit’s technology, which has already been integrated into Mimecast products, aims to provide protection against zero-day malware and unknown threats in both data files and links. It uses its real-time, signatureless engine called DvC™ (data vs. code) to scan content as it enters an organisation’s systems, and isolate content deemed ‘risky’.
“Security methods like signature-based antivirus and sandbox detonation are too limited when it comes to today’s most advanced threats. It’s time for a more capable, efficient and durable approach,” said Peter Bauer, Mimecast’s CEO. “We’re excited to welcome Solebit into the Mimecast family, as it helps us to offer customers a new approach that fundamentally improves their cybersecurity and resilience efficacy in the most efficient way on the market.”
The company, founded in 2014 by a team of cybersecurity experts who formerly worked in Israeli Defense Force technology units, had previously raised $13 million in investments, with the most recent disclosed funding coming from a Series A round in March.
It describes its platform as “challenging the norms of currently available technologies that rely on slow, costly and mostly outdated, ineffective methods of sandboxing, signatures and behavioral inspection.”
Instead, it uses DvC, as well as advanced flow analysis, de-obfuscation techniques and deep content evaluation, to identify and block malicious code in data files, such as hidden CPU instructions, encrypted and polymorphic payloads, shellcodes and other commands. This helps it detect advanced sandbox-evading threats which traditional antivirus programs may miss.
“Solebit has been an integral part of the Mimecast security layer for some time,” said Julian Martin, Mimecast’s VP of Global Channels and Operations. “However, with it now being part of the Mimecast technology set, this allows us to further develop internally the capabilities and extend deeper into the other service aspects, web security being the obvious one.
This is Mimecast’s second acquisition in a month – early in July it acquired cybersecurity training and awareness company Ataata, with Bauer once again citing the importance of combating cyberattacks which bypass traditional threat detection methods.
