AT&T acquires AlienVault to expand cyber security solutions to SMBs

AlienVault had raised over $118 million in venture funding

AT&T recently completed the largest acquisition in its entire history when it spent $85 billion in picking up Time Warner, but that hasn't slowed the company down one bit. It has since spent a reported $1.6 billion on acquiring digital ad firm AppNexus and now it has made yet another purchase, though one that is likely on the smaller end of the spectrum.

On Tuesday, it was announced that AT&T has entered into an agreement to acquire cyber security company AlienVault. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed, but it is small enough that "it is not expected to have a material effect on AT&T's results," according to the press release that was put out. 

"AT&T is acquiring the entire company. This includes the technology, platforms, infrastructure, talent, including MSSP relationships and OTX communities. AT&T will continue to invest in and build on AlienVault’s foundational technology as the company integrates AlienVault into AT&T’s cybersecurity suite of services," Danessa Lambdin, VP of Cybersecurity Solutions at AT&T, told VatorNews. 

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2018. Until then, each company will continue to operate independently. As for what happens after, Lambdin told me that it is "premature to discuss our plans for integration."

Founded in 2007, AlienVault is a platform that provides security controls for organizations to address their compliance and threat management needs. One of its solutions is its Unified Security Management platform, which includes asset discovery, vulnerability management, intrusion detection, behavioral monitoring, SIEM, and log management, as well as continuous threat intelligence. It also provides its Open Threat Exchange platform, a crowd-sourced computer-security platform.

"OTX is the world’s largest open threat intelligence community that facilitates the collection and dissemination of threat data among 80,000 participants in more than 140 countries. The company’s main security technology, the USM platform, combines threat detection, incident response, and compliance management into one solution," said Lambdin. "Together, with our enterprise-grade detection, response and remediation capabilities, we’re providing scalable, intelligent, affordable security for business customers of all sizes."

The real reason that AT&T acquired AlienVault is to shore up its cyber security efforts when it comes to small and medium-sized businesses.

"Businesses today, regardless of size or industry, need cyber threat detection and response technologies and services. With AlienVault, we will be able to accelerate cybersecurity for businesses of all sizes. AlienVault’s expertise in threat intelligence will improve our ability to help small and medium-sized organizations detect and respond to cybersecurity attacks,"  Lambdin told me.

"We will be better together with AlienVault, because we will pair our respective strengths to scale cybersecurity to ALL businesses. We view this as a real game changer for our customers.  AlienVault’s expertise in threat hunting and analytics will improve our ability to help organizations detect and respond to cybersecurity attacks. Together, with our enterprise-grade detection, response and remediation capabilities, we’re providing scalable, intelligent, affordable security for business customers of all sizes."

AlienVault had raised over $118 million in venture funding, most recently a $52 million round in 2015. Investors in the company included Institutional Venture Partners, Trident Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and GGV Capital.