McAfee To Buy Skyhigh Networks In Cloud Cybersecurity Push

McAfee is to buy Skyhigh Networks, claiming the union of the two companies will deliver the most advanced cybersecurity infrastructure for customers moving ever greater amounts of data to the cloud.

Skyhigh’s expertise lies in cloud cybersecurity and it monitors billions of events to detect threats and unusual behaviour before making recommendations or taking automated actions that rectify policy violations.

For example Allied irish Bank (AIB) uses Skyhigh’s technology to prevent data breaches and stop Shadow IT.

McAfee Skyhigh Networks

The hope is that the union of this technology with McAfee’s products and reach, the combined company can help protect against both cloud and endpoint threats.

“Becoming part of McAfee is the ideal next step in realizing Skyhigh Networks’ vision of not simply making the cloud secure, but making it the most secure environment for business,” said Skyhigh CEO Rajiv Gupta, who will join the McAfee leadership team.

“McAfee will provide global scale to further accelerate Skyhigh’s growth, with the combined company providing leading technologies and solutions across cloud and endpoint security – categories Skyhigh and McAfee respectively helped create, and the two architectural control points for enterprise security.”

The acquisition is the most significant since McAfee became a standalone company earlier this year. Intel bought McAfee in 2010 but does not have a controlling take in the new business, retaining a 49 percent share.

McAfee said the purchase would strengthen its ambition to become a leading, independent pure-play cybersecurity vendor.

“Skyhigh Networks had the foresight five years ago to realize that cybersecurity for cloud environments could not be an impediment to, or afterthought of, cloud adoption,” said McAfee CEO Chris Young.

“They pioneered an entirely new product category called cloud access security broker (CASB) that analysts describe as one of the fastest growing areas of information security investments of the last five years – where Skyhigh continues to innovate and lead.

“Skyhigh’s leadership in cloud security, combined with McAfee’s security portfolio strength, will set the company apart in helping organizations operate freely and securely to reach their full potential.”

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