McAfee to acquire Skyhigh Networks to pioneer cloud security

McAfee has acquired cloud security start-up Skyhigh Networks

Cyber security firm McAfee is to acquire cloud computing start-up Skyhigh Networks in a bid to become a leader in endpoint and cloud solutions.

Less than eight months after becoming a standalone company, McAfee is looking to accelerate its endpoint and cloud cyber security offerings.

McAfee said the deal will allow it to develop more advanced cyber security architecture that covers endpoint and cloud control points. It also wants to create a system linked by intelligence, analytics and orchestration.

As part of the deal, Skyhigh's current CEO Rajiv Gupta will join McAfee CEO Chris Young's leadership team, and he'll be responsible for running the company's cloud business unit.

Skyhigh's existing organisational structure will remain the same, ensuring there's a degree of continuity for customers and partners. However, Skyhigh will be exposed to McAfee's global customer base.

Chris Young, CEO of McAfee, praised the acquisition and things achieved by Skyhigh over the past few years. He said the deal will strengthen his company's position in the cloud security market.

"Skyhigh Networks had the foresight five years ago to realise that cybersecurity for cloud environments could not be an impediment to, or afterthought of, cloud adoption," stated Young.

"They pioneered an entirely new product category called cloud access security broker (CASB) that analysts describe as one of the fastest growing areas of information security investments of the last five years - where Skyhigh continues to innovate and lead.

"Skyhigh's leadership in cloud security, combined with McAfee's security portfolio strength, will set the company apart in helping organizations operate freely and securely to reach their full potential."

Skyhigh Networks's portfolio provides visiblity into content, context and user activity across a variety of environments. It also runs a platform that lets cloud providers control SaaS applications.

Gupta said: "Becoming part of McAfee is the ideal next step in realizing Skyhigh Networks' vision of not simply making the cloud secure, but making it the most secure environment for business.

"McAfee will provide global scale to further accelerate Skyhigh's growth, with the combined company providing leading technologies and solutions across cloud and endpoint security - categories Skyhigh and McAfee respectively helped create, and the two architectural control points for enterprise security."