Google’s Largest Acquisition Is Cloud Security Platform Wiz

Google announced on Tuesday that it is acquiring cybersecurity firm Wiz for $32 billion, marking the biggest purchase in the company’s 26-year history. It’s also a lesson in not accepting the first offer — the company turned down Google’s offer of $23 billion last summer.

Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport wrote in a blog post that joining Google Cloud will “enable us to execute and innovate even faster” as both businesses “are fueled by the belief that cloud security needs to be easier, more accessible, more intelligent, and democratized, so more organizations can adopt and use cloud and AI securely.”

Rappaport noted that “attackers aren’t slowing down” and are now “using the most innovative technologies.”

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Scammers are certainly getting more sophisticated, from toll text schemes to AI impersonations. The FBI recently warned Gmail users to enable two-factor authentication after a series of ransomware attacks began locking people out of their accounts and demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Businesses and governments that run in the cloud are looking for even stronger security solutions, and greater choice in cloud computing providers,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai, in a statement. “Together, Google Cloud and Wiz will turbocharge improved cloud security and the ability to use multiple clouds.”

What Is Wiz?

Wiz is a cloud security platform that connects to all major clouds and code environments. It’s used by about 50% of Fortune 100 companies, according to the company. Wiz scans about 230 billion files daily.

In the post, Rappaport wrote that the change will help the company “execute and innovate even faster.”

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“Becoming part of Google Cloud is effectively strapping a rocket to our backs: it will accelerate our rate of innovation faster than what we could achieve as a standalone company,” Rappaport wrote.

In a statement, Google said that Wiz is an “easy-to-use security platform” and that “organizations of all sizes” use it to “protect everything they build and run in the cloud.”

Wiz is backed by a bevy of notable investors, including LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Blackstone, SoftBank Vision Fund, and Andreessen Horowitz.

The company has raised more than $1.9 billion, per Bloomberg.

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