Microsoft Makes a Play for IoT Security With CyberX Acquisition

Microsoft expanded their presence into the industrial IoT/OT security sphere through the acquisition of CyberX.

As a part of their drive to proliferate further into the IoT space with a commitment of $5 billionOpens a new window announced a couple years ago, Microsoft has agreed to acquire CyberX, a Massachusetts-based vendor of IoT/OT securityOpens a new window platform for industrial systems and networks.

CyberX’s services will assist Microsoft with the detection and prevention of breaches for a larger end-to-end security across the Azure IoT stack, Azure Security Center for IoT, and Azure Sentinel, Microsoft’s SIEM/SOAR solution.

Microsoft states the following as the two challenges of customers that they seek to resolve:

1. Giving customers visibility into what IoT devices are already connected to their networks.
2. Managing the security on existing IoT devices (referred to as “brownfield devices”) that have been historically difficult due to a myriad of custom protocols.

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CyberX’s platform leverages behavioral analytics to gain full visibility across managed and unmanaged IoT devices. Available as a hybrid model, ‘supporting both cloud-connected and air-gapped networks’, It can help customers in discovering assets (even brownfield and legacy devices), adaptively monitor threats and manage vulnerabilitiesOpens a new window . This essentially imparts a cost-effective way of securing and transforming extant systems toward digitization.

Nir Giller, co-founder, GM International, and CTO of CyberX saidOpens a new window , “By joining forces with Microsoft, we will rapidly scale our business and technology to securely enable digital transformation for many more organizations.”

CyberX had previously integratedOpens a new window their platform with Microsoft Azure Security CenterOpens a new window and joined Microsoft Intelligent Security Association.

The security vendor had been bestowed with $48 million in investments so far, with the latest being in March 2018.

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Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, though according to reports, it is in the vicinity of $165 million. CyberX founders Omer Schneider (CEO), and Nir Giller (CTO), as well as the rest of the employees will be absorbed in Microsoft and will be managed by Yuval Eldar, Microsoft GM of IoT Security.

Omer Schneider, Co-Founder and CEO at CyberX said, “Nir and I founded CyberX with the goal of delivering a scalable solution that would be easy to deploy and reduce risk for enterprises worldwide. We’re thankful to our loyal customers and partners as well as to our dedicated employees whose innovation and hard work made it possible for us to reach this important milestone, and also to our investors for their ongoing support.”

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