Mimecast Buys Security Software Developer Solebit For $88M

Mimecast has purchased security software developer Solebit to boost its protection offerings against advanced cyberattacks, zero-day threats and malware.

The Lexington, Mass.-based email security vendor said its $88 million acquisition of San Francisco-based Solebit will help customers identify and isolate zero-day malware and unknown threats in data files. Solebit's protection will help customers face today's broad threat landscape with evasion-aware, signature-less technology.

"Security methods like signature-based antivirus and sandbox detonation are too limited when it comes to today's most advanced threats," Peter Bauer, Mimecast's CEO, said in a statement. "It's time for a more capable, efficient, and durable approach."

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Solebit was founded in 2014 and employs 34 people, according to LinkedIn, which is up from a staff of 23 just one year ago. The company has raised $13 million in three rounds of outside funding, including an $11 million Series A round this March led by North Palm Beach, Fl.-based venture capital firm ClearSky.

The company's team of founders are all graduates of the elite technology units in the Israel Defense Forces and have years of experience in offensive and defensive security, according to Solebit's website.

The company's technology is designed to help customers find advanced threats by recognizing when there is malicious code embedded within active content and data files, according to Mimecast. This approach precludes the need for signatures and sandboxes, Mimecast said.

Solebit scans content as it enters an organization's systems to determine whether it is infected with malware in a transient way. This avoids the need for extra hardware and processing time that's typically required to isolate and detonate content that's presumed to be risky.

The company's technology is capable of blocking attacks via email, web, cloud, or B2B apps, regardless of whether they're at the application, operating system or machine level. Solebit can in real-time identify and block malicious code whether it's in the form of ransomware, spyware, trojans, rootkits or any other type of malware yet to be defined, according to the company's website.

The company's advanced threat detection capabilities are already integrated into Mimecast Targeted Threat Protection products. Specifically, Solebit currently provides Mimecast customers with insight into what was detected and why it was categorized as a threat.

Solebit is designed for medium to large enterprises, generally with 100 or more device users, according to the company's website. The company currently counts a variety of leading global financial organizations, tech, defense contractors, security vendors, cloud and telecom service providers as active customers.

Mimecast's stock remains unchanged at $36.37 in pre-market trading. The deal was announced before the market opened Tuesday.

This is Mimecast's second acquisition in less than a month. The company bought Bethesda, Md.-based cybersecurity training startup Ataata on July 10 to help customers mitigate risk and reduce employee security errors.