Proofpoint has announced it’s acquired ObserveIT, the insider threat management platform, for $225 million in cash. The agreement will officially close later this year subject to conditions including Hart-Scott-Rodino merger review.
The acquisition is seen by Proofpoint as an investment into further developing its security offerings and data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities.
ObserveIT’s employees and customers were publicly welcomed to Proofpoint by Gary Steele, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Proofpoint, in a statement released by the company.
Proofpoint’s new, integrated solution
Through the acquisition, Proofpoint aims to extend its endpoint joining email, CASB and data-at-rest to form an enhanced enterprise DLP offering.
ObserveIT’s endpoint agent technology and data risk analytics will be combined with Proofpoint’s information classification, threat detection and intelligence.
The integrated DLP platform will deliver real-time detection of the anomalous interactions across people, data, devices, and applications. Security teams will have a view of data whether on a corporate device, in a cloud app like Office 365, or via email.
The solution will become part of the Proofpoint information protection suite and is expected to be available some time in 2020.
In addition, Proofpoint will continue to develop ObserveIT’s insider threat management solution. This offering provides real-time alerts and insights into user activity, aiding security teams in detecting, investigating and preventing potential insider threat incidents.
Demand for people-centric security
According to Proofpoint, people-centric security is becoming more critical as individuals access data from endpoints off the corporate network in both sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud apps.
Furthermore, to aid in a growing culture of remote workers, enterprise DLP must move from legacy, perimeter-based control and compliance to solutions that detect and respond to data across cloud apps, email and lightweight endpoint agents, Proofpoint states.
“Today’s ObserveIT acquisition underscores Proofpoint’s commitment to providing organizations with people-centric cybersecurity and compliance solutions that protect what matters: their people and the data they have access to, in a post-perimeter, cloud-first world,” says Steele.
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