Splunk acquires machine learning and behavioural analytics company, Caspida
Under the terms of the agreement, Splunk acquires all of the outstanding stock of Caspida for an aggregate purchase price of about $US190 million, which includes $US127 million in cash and $US63 million in restricted Splunk securities.
Splunk said, in a statement, that the majority of purchase price consideration will be paid from its existing cash. It added that total equity consideration plus Caspida employee retention incentives will result in less than one per cent total dilution from this transaction.
The combination of Splunk and Caspida technology will unify both the companies' breach response with breach detection solutions and as a result of the acquisition, Splunk customers will have out-of-the-box user behavioural analytics to help detect, respond to and mitigate threats.
Splunk senior vice-president of security markets, Haiyan Song, said recent high-profile breaches show virtually all attacks happen with compromised credentials, and automated detection leveraging machine learning is the future for detecting known and unknown threats from insider and external attackers.
"With this acquisition, our customers can now also better detect advanced threats - the breaches that are becoming more complex and severe with each passing day.
"With Caspida, Splunk accelerates its focus on solving advanced threats - both external and from insiders - by shining a light on those who are wrongfully using valid credentials to freely and unpredictably exploit systems they have accessed," he said.
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Caspida CEO, Muddu Sudhakar, said by analysing machine data and using data science to detect meaningful anomalous behaviour of users, devices and entities, Caspida has solved a problem that previously required significant manpower and expensive, do-it-yourself toolsets.
"We founded Caspida with a vision of applying data science to help solve the most pressing cybersecurity challenges - advanced threats and insider threats. We are very excited to join the Splunk family and deliver new detection capabilities to customers," he added.
Operationally, the company will be spending this year integrating the technology. It also said in the statement that the company will absorb the expense base of Caspida this year, and reaffirm its current full fiscal year 2016 revenue, non-GAAP operating margin, and operating cash flow guidance.
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