Google buys Siemplify in first phase of cyber investment

Alphabet’s Google confirmed on 4 January the acquisition of Israeli security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) specialist Siemplify, forming the basis for its long-term investment in cyber security, as previously pledged in August 2021.

Financial terms of the deal were not formally disclosed but it has been widely reported that Siemplify sold for around $500m (£369m/€441m).

Google plans to fold Siemplify’s platform into the Google Cloud Chronicle service – itself a product of Alphabet’s X “moonshot” lab – to build a stronger foundation for its cyber security services proposition.

It said that unifying SOAR capabilities with Chronicle’s security analytics toolset was an important step forward in a larger vision to build an “intuitive, efficient, security operations workflow around planet-scale security telemetry” that realises the goal of a “modern threat management stack” that “empowers customers to go beyond typical security event and information management [SIEM] and extended detection and response [XDR] tooling”. It hopes this will help customers better detect and respond to cyber threats at speed and scale.

“In a time when cyber attacks are rapidly growing in both frequency and sophistication, there’s never been a better time to bring these two companies together,” wrote Google Cloud Security vice-president and general manager, Sunil Potti.

“We both share the belief that security analysts need to be able to solve more incidents with greater complexity while requiring less effort and less specialised knowledge. With Siemplify, we will change the rules on how organisations hunt, detect and respond to threats.”

Siemplify CEO Amos Stern added: “We’re excited to join Google Cloud and build on the success we’ve had in the market helping companies address growing security threats. Together with Chronicle’s rich security analytics and threat intelligence, we can truly help security professionals transform the security operations centre [SOC] to defend against today’s threats.”

With customers including global financial services organisations and large manufacturers, Siemplify has also found a ready audience of users among managed security service providers (MSSPs), such as Oxford-based Longwall Security, which counts among its own customers the likes of insurance firm Aviva, and supermarket chain Co-op.

Longwall incorporated Siemplify into its own offering to automate the menial work of triaging and managing the barrage of security incidents and events customers must face every day, leaving human cyber experts free to hunt for threats and respond to incidents. It said this had enabled it to “outrival some of its largest competitors”, even without its own SOC.

Last year, Siemplify made substantial investments into its UK business in response to a 75% increase in its local customer base, expanding both its on-the-ground team and its channel partner community.