Google is set to buy US cybersecurity firm Mandiant for $5.4 billion.

The search giant offered 32$ per share in an all-cash deal, a 53 per cent premium to Mandiant’s share price at the time of the offer.

Upon the close of the acquisition, which is still subject to regulatory approval, Mandiant will join Google’s cloud computing division Google Cloud.

Mandiant, founded in 2004, gained public notoriety after helping to reveal the SolarWinds cyberattack in December 2020.

The incident saw hackers use the infrastructure of IT firm SolarWinds to distribute trojans to the users of network and applications monitoring platform Orion, compromising 18,000 companies including 425 of the Fortune 500 and the US military according to reports.

The news comes after Bloomberg reported in February that Microsoft was considering making an offer for Mandiant.

The acquisition would be the second largest in Google’s history, falling short of the BigTech’s $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola’s phone division Mobility in 2011.

“Cybersecurity is a mission, and we believe it’s one of the most important of our generation. Google Cloud shares our mission-driven culture to bring security to every organisation,” said Kevin Mandia, chief executive at Mandiant. “Together, we will deliver our expertise and intelligence at scale via the Mandiant Advantage SaaS platform, as part of the Google Cloud security portfolio.

“These efforts will help organisations to effectively, efficiently, and continuously manage and configure their complex mix of security products.”

“The Mandiant brand is synonymous with unmatched insights for organisations seeking to keep themselves secure in a constantly changing environment,” said Thomas Kurian, chief executive at Google Cloud. “This is an opportunity to deliver an end-to-end security operations suite and extend one of the best consulting organisations in the world.”

“Together we can make a profound impact in securing the cloud, accelerating the adoption of cloud computing, and ultimately make the world safer.”

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