Google has confirmed its largest-ever acquisition after signing a definitive agreement to acquire cybersecurity company Wiz for $32bn.
The deal will be settled in all cash and represents the Big Tech companies latest venture in bolstering its security defences during a time of surging threats, such as AI-related fraud including deepfakes.
Wiz is a cloud security company that will be integrated within Google’s existing cloud security network. The cybersecurity firm installs a comprehensive graph code, cloud resources, services and applications to prevent attacks before they happen.
Its solutions also identifies potential attacks by prioritising the most critical risks based on impact, providing secure applications and solutions to partners to collaborate with developers to not only prevent the attack, but also future proof ongoing threats.
Wiz has been a pre-existing Google Cloud partner, lending its expertise to the Big Tech firm to bolster its own cybersecurity defences. The acquisition will now see Wiz work within Google’s infrastructure to protect organisations from a myriad of cloud-based and digital threats.
In a Google statement authored by CEO Thomas Kurian, it said: “Wiz and Google Cloud share a vision to improve security by making it easier and faster for organisations of all types and sizes to protect themselves, end-to-end, across all major clouds.
“Google Cloud is a leader in cloud infrastructure, with deep AI expertise and a track record of industry-leading security innovation. Bringing this to Wiz will help make their solutions even better and more scalable, helping protect more organisations faster.
“This will help spur the adoption of multicloud cybersecurity, the use of multicloud, and competition and growth in cloud computing.”
The acquisition may come as a surprise to many within the tech sector after Wiz initially walked away from a $23bn offer from Google last year as it opted for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) instead.
Despite this, Wiz was unable to land an IPO filing due to various macroeconomic conditions involving lack of investor confidence in the US in a time of uncertainty under the Joe Biden administration.
Now, under Google’s security team, Wiz will work in tandem to create a unified, next-generation security platform that utilises Wiz’s Cloud Security Platform with Google Security Operations.
Fighting a looming threat
This unified front will look to precisely analyse intelligence threats in real-time to afford customers visibility to their own systems. The new platform will also deploy AI-powered agents to act in extension of physical teams, as well as applying measurable defences to test and validate defence controls.
A key focus for Google with the Wiz acquisition is AI, with other Big Tech companies like Microsoft and Meta accelerating funding and development within its own AI models and security defences.
Not only are Big Tech firms looking to gain a competitive market advantage when it comes to AI development, but there is a looming threat on the horizon with AI-related fraud that has tech and financial companies looking to rapidly build out teams and technology to prevent this.
A report from Basware in December revealed that 90% of organisations across the world admitted that they lack the technology and infrastructure to mitigate AI fraud, while also citing a lack of available talent.
With the Wiz acquisition, Google is bringing onboard the company’s development of AI fraud defences and the talent as well to prevent this surge before it gets out of hand.
