Mimecast Beefs Up Protection with Segasec Acquisition

Mimecast has acquired Segasec, a provider of digital threat protection, to provide brand exploitation protection using machine learning (ML) to identify potential hackers at the earliest stages of an attack.

The Mimecast Segasec solution is designed to enable organizations to: protect employees, customers, partners and third-party vendors from phishing scams attempting to trick them by abusing domains that are similar to their legitimate branding; identify and protect against attacks where cybercriminals have cloned a website for malicious activities against stakeholders; and block and take down both suspicious sites and active scams.

Financial terms of the acquisition weren’t disclosed.

Dino DiMarino, Mimecast‘s chief revenue officer, tells us this acquisition gives his company’s partners an opportunity to offer additional brand protection to their customers. Mimecast partners with both MSPs and resellers.

Mimecast’s Dino DiMarino

“Email is the No. 1 attack vector, and cybercriminals are leveraging email to steal credentials, gain access to sensitive information, etc.,” he said. “When these malicious emails pass through an email system, email security vendors can see that; however, increasingly criminals are using an organization’s brand identity to attack their customers and their supply chain. Since this tactic isn’t using a domain the organization owns, it is really difficult to identify that their online presence is being used to dupe their customers, partners or third-party vendors. Mimecast’s acquisition of Segasec gives partners the ability to offer customers this additional layer of brand protection, and an entirely new revenue stream for them.”

Prior to the acquisition, Segasec had a small number of partners, DiMarino said. This acquisition is an opportunity for their partners to offer a broader range of solutions.

“Mimecast has been in the business of email security for a long time and the channel continues to be a big part of our business,” he said. “As technology evolves, organizations are increasingly seeing malicious actors turn to more complex email attack methods that begin outside of their own perimeter, using brand identity to attack them and their supply chain. With Segasec, Mimecast can extend email security to that outside layer to stop these types of attacks in their tracks before it’s too late, also providing partners with a broader solution that they previously would have had to offer via multiple vendors.

“In today’s increasingly digital economy, we rely so heavily on websites and email to interact with businesses in both our professional and personal lives,” said Elad Schulman, Segasec’s CEO and co-founder. “As such, brand exploitation has been on the rise, as cybercriminals co-opt the brands we depend on and violate our trust. The powerful combination of Mimecast and Segasec will help customers better protect their brands, customers and other external stakeholders, as well as their own employees.”