CrowdStrike Acquires Cloud Security Provider Adaptive Shield

CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. Today announced plans to acquire Adaptive Shield Ltd., a startup that helps companies protect the data they store in cloud applications.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. CTech reported The deal was valued at $300 million, more than six times the amount Adaptive Shield raised from investors. The company’s backers include Blackstone and Insight Partners.

CrowdStrike is one of the world’s largest cybersecurity services providers, with an installed base of more than 30,000 organizations. The company’s software helps protect cloud environments, employee devices and other assets from cyberattacks. CrowdStrike Clients spent Its product value was $963.9 million last quarter, up 32% from the same period a year earlier.

Tel Aviv-based Adaptive Shield, in turn, provides a cybersecurity platform to protect software-as-a-service applications. The software scans such applications for vulnerabilities, misconfigured accounts, and malicious activity. Adaptive Shield also generates suggestions on how administrators can resolve detected issues.

Employees often log into cloud applications using their Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 accounts. During the registration process, the application can access files associated with the employee’s account, which sometimes creates cybersecurity risks. Adaptive Shield says its platform automates the task of identifying such risks to save administrators time.

The platform can also detect a number of other cybersecurity issues. It detects when a company doesn’t enable malware detection features in an app or uses weak passwords. Adaptive Shield also detects more subtle problems, such as employee accounts that have access to more data than is strictly necessary.

A breach detection engine built into the platform monitors hackers’ attempts to gain access to a company’s cloud applications. When Adaptive Shield detects malicious activity, it generates a summary of the hacking tactics the hackers used. It identifies hacking tactics based on information from MITER ATT&CK, a database of hacking techniques that cybersecurity professionals use as a reference when investigating threats.

To help customers address their most pressing issues first, Adaptive Shield ranks detected cybersecurity risks by severity. It generates remediation suggestions that assist administrators in the process of responding to violations.

In addition to cloud-based applications, Adaptive Shield’s risk detection engine analyzes the devices used by company employees to access these applications. The software detects when a worker tries to log into a service from an unsecured computer or phone. It can check whether the device is managed by the information technology team and also determine whether it can run software with known vulnerabilities.

“As adoption of SaaS and artificial intelligence grows, each new application brings added complexity and the risk of misconfiguration of human and non-human accounts, creating opportunities for sophisticated attacks,” said CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz.

Adaptive Shield uses CrowdStrike’s flagship Falcon cybersecurity platform to provide some of its device security features. Specifically, it uses software to determine which employee is using which endpoint and find vulnerable systems. This existing integration should make it easier for CrowdStrike to integrate Adaptive Shield into its product portfolio.

The companies plan to complete the deal by February.

Photo: CrowdStrike