AT&T to Buy AlienVault to Tackle 'Current Threat Landscape'

AT&T is bolstering its security portfolio with the acquisition of AlienVault.

The San Mateo, California-based vendor offers unified security management and what it calls the “first and largest open threat intelligence community.” The companies say those capabilities will fit with AT&T’s portfolio, which includes threat detection and response.

“Regardless of size or industry, businesses today need cyberthreat detection and response technologies and services,” AT&T Business CEO Thaddeus Arroyo said. “The current threat landscape has shifted this from a luxury for some, to a requirement for all.”

AT&T praised AlienVault’s products and the talent of its personnel.

“AlienVault’s expertise in threat intelligence will improve our ability to help organizations detect and respond to cybersecurity attacks,” Arroyo said. “Together, with our enterprise-grade detection, response and remediation capabilities, we’re providing scalable, intelligent, affordable security for business customers of all sizes.”

AT&T says AlienVault’s offerings will complement its edge-to-edge intelligence capabilities. The telecommunications giant says it has been investing in security and earned the title of “Leader” in the 2017 IDC MarketScape Managed Security Services report.

“We’re thrilled to join forces with AT&T. They bring a robust cybersecurity portfolio with an industry-leading technology ecosystem,” said Barmak Meftah, president and CEO, AlienVault. “This deal accelerates our ability to deliver on the AlienVault mission, which is to democratize threat detection and response to companies of all sizes.”

Carol Wilson of our sister site, Light Reading, writes that telecom service providers are jockeying to lead lead the way in the managed security space. Sprint, for example, announced a partnership with Zscaler to enhance enterprise security.

Wilson says “businesses of all sizes” are more than ever facing the threat of security breaches.

“The SMB space is becoming a major part of that battleground as cybercriminals move on from the largest targets to smaller companies who may be weak links in the cybersecurity food chain,” she wrote.

AlienVault will operate independently of AT&T following regulatory approval of the acquisition. The deal will reportedly close in the third quarter, and its financial terms are unknown.

As M&A ramps up in the telecom space, companies like AT&T learned that if you want to be a buyer, you might also have to be a seller.

AT&T sold off 31 of its data centers last month to help pay for its purchase of Time Warner. Telco rivals Verizon and CenturyLink divested data center assets in 2016 and 2017, respectively. AT&T’s foray into digital media followed Verizon’s 2016 purchase of Yahoo assets.