Google is buying a company for half a billion dollars to promote cloud security

According to a Reuters report, the $500 million acquisition of Israel-based startup Siemplify by Google is supposed to help the company strengthen its cloud security initiative, Chronicle. In a blog post announcing the deal, Google describes Siemplify as a security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) organization and plans to integrate its capabilities into Chronicle.

"Simplified is an intuitive workspace that enables security teams to better manage risk and reduce the cost of addressing threats," Google Cloud Security Vice President Sunil Potti said in a blog post. "Simplified Security Operations Center allows analysts to manage their operations from start to finish, respond to cyber threats with speed and accuracy, and become smarter with each analyst interaction."

Ciamplify debuted in 2015, and as Reuters reported, it has raised a total of $58 million from investors so far. A source close to the situation told Reuters that Alphabet-owned Google was interested in buying the startup after SimpliFi was prepared for another round of funding. Simplified will now join Chronicle under the umbrella of Google Cloud.

Chronicle was first launched in 2018 following the closure of X Development (formerly Google X), Alphabet's "moonshot factory" and is believed to help large enterprises locate, analyze and share security-related information. helps to share. According to Vice, security experts were excited about the upcoming company when it first launched, as it was supposed to use innovative machine-learning technology and telemetry data to boost companies' cybersecurity. . But after it branched out to Google Cloud in 2019, Vice reported that some employees left — including co-founder Mike Viacek — as a result of feeling the company had lost its original purpose.

The acquisition of Ciamplify by Google didn't come long after it promised to spend more than $10 billion over the next five years to help improve US cyber security. In May, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to help strengthen national cyber security in light of major attacks on the Colonial Pipeline and Microsoft Exchange Server.