Google is reportedly in talks to purchase cybersecurity startup Wiz for about $23 billion.
That’s according to a Sunday (July 14) report by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which pointed out that this would be Google’s largest-ever acquisition.
The tech giant is in advanced talks with Wiz and a deal could come soon, the report said, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The report noted that the proposed deal comes as Google and other Big Tech companies are dealing with strict scrutiny from antitrust regulators. It could also, the report said, help bolster the company’s efforts to compete with Microsoft and Amazon in the cloud computing space.
Google has been trying to grow its cybersecurity business, with an emphasis on the cloud, the report added. The company’s largest recent acquisition — and its second biggest ever — was the nearly $5.4 billion it paid two years ago for Mandiant, also a security firm.
PYMNTS has contacted Google for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.
Wiz was valued at $12 billion in May after raising $1 billion. Co-Founder and CEO Assaf Rappaport told WSJ at the time that the company expects this year to be a time of consolidation in the cybersecurity sector. Wiz itself had acquired another company, cloud detection and response firm Gem Security, in April of this year.
Google’s efforts to expand its cybersecurity offering comes amid what PYMNTS has referred to as the “year of the cyberattack.”
That was on July 4, and since then even more high-profile breaches have emerged. For example, last week saw hackers gain unauthorized access to dozens of HubSpot accounts.
“Despite the smaller scale of the breach, considering that many people reuse passwords across accounts, a single, targeted breach on a defined customer subset can trigger extensive and far-reaching consequences,” PYMNTS wrote last week.
Days later, AT&T revealed that the call and text records of “nearly all” of its customers were stolen in April when a fraudster accessed an AT&T workspace on a third-party cloud platform and exfiltrated the files. The company said it delayed providing public disclosure of the incident at the request of the Department of Justice, according to a regulatory filing.
“This heightened emphasis on cybersecurity coincides with a broader debate surrounding data security in the connected economy, particularly in connected workplaces and smart homes, where the growing use of connected devices highlights new vulnerabilities, given the vast amounts of personal data they gather,” PYMNYS wrote earlier this month.
The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Fraud Management in Online Transactions” found that 82% of eCommerce merchants suffered cyberattacks or data breaches in the past year, with 47% saying the breaches resulted in both lost revenue and lost customers.