FireEye Acquires Big Data Firm X15 Software

Cyber threat protection firm FireEye said on Friday that it has acquired privately held big data platform provider X15 Software in a deal valued at roughly $20 million.

Under the terms of the acquisition, which closed on Jan. 11, FireEye agreed to pay approximately $15 million in equity and $5 million in cash to acquire Sunnyvale, Calif.-based X15.

FireEye says that X15’s technology will “add significant data management capabilities and provide customers with an open platform for integrating machine-generated data that can easily incorporate new security technologies and big data sources to adapt to the evolving threat environment.”

FireEye LogoShortly after acquiring security orchestration firm Invotas in February of 2016, FireEye made a push into orchestration and automation with the launch of its Security Orchestrator offering, designed to help eliminate repetitive manual processes, reduce process errors, and automate the correct response between different security controls.  In late 2016, the company unveiled Helix, a platform designed to help customers efficiently integrate and automate security operations functions.

“Organizations today are overwhelmed by alerts, the number of tools required to manage their security operations, and the challenge of unifying access to the large volumes of data that matter,” John Laliberte, senior vice president of engineering at FireEye, said in a statement. “X15 Software technology will accelerate our strategy of delivering an innovative, next-gen security platform.”

FireEye claims that the integration of X15 Software’s technology will help FireEye’s security operations platform address the challenges of collecting, querying and analyzing large volumes of machine-generated data in real-time and manage security data from on-premise, hybrid and cloud environments.

X15 Software was founded in 2013 and currently employs approximately 20 employees. 

Original author: Mike Lennon