Microsoft to acquire Israeli cloud security company Adallom for $320m

Adallom will reportedly become the centre for Microsoft's cyber security business in Israel

Microsoft is planning to acquire Israeli cyber security firm Adallom for $320m, according to the Tel Aviv-based Calacalist financial newspaper.

The company was only founded in 2012 and is based in Menlo Park, California, with a development centre in Israel. It has about 80 employees at its offices in Israel and the US.

It develops software-as-a-service (SaaS) security platforms, and the newspaper claims that it will now become the centre for Microsoft's cyber security business in Israel.

The company's mission statement aims to make corporate data "safe in the cloud", whether that data is stored on cloud services from Salesforce, Microsoft or Google. It claims that it has protected businesses against ‘real-world attacks' and, in the process, discovered a Zeus malware variant targeting Salesforce.com and an Office 365 token hijacking vulnerability.

According to CrunchBase, Adallom has received about $49.5m of funding in three rounds from six investors.

Microsoft has been on an acquisition trail of sorts in Israel: it has already acquired security software developer Aorato for about $200m, and machine learning technology company Equivio, while it agreed a deal to bring N-Trig, the firm behind the technology of the Surface Pen, in-house.

The Israeli tech start-up scene has been buzzing in the past few years, with many of the companies being acquired by tech giants. In January, Amazon.com agreed to acquire Israeli chip designer Annapurna Labs, while Dropbox agreed to buy CloudOn, while in April, Apple decided to purchase the camera-technology firm LinX.