Akamai Technologies is shelling out $600 million to acquire Israel-based Guardicore to enhance its zero-trust solutions.

Akamai is adding Guardicore’s microsegmentation solution to its zero-trust security portfolio. By doing so, Akamai can provide comprehensive protections to the enterprise. It will defend against threat actors, and the spread of malware and ransomware.

Guardicore’s microsegmentation solution limits user access to only those applications that are authorized to communicate with each other. By denying communication as the default, the threat surface and risk exposure are reduced. Therefore, it limits the spread of malware and protects the flow of enterprise data across the network. This protection extends beyond the data center to the cloud, including bare metal, virtual machines and containers.

The Akamai-Guardicore acquisition should close in the fourth quarter.

‘Really Good Fit’ Between the Companies

Tom Leighton is Akamai’s CEO and co-founder.

Akamai’s Tom Leighton

“We have been looking for this solution for some time and discovered Guardicore,” he said. “We thought they were the best by far. They were not for sale, but we approached them. And after a long process of talking and working together, they became open to an acquisition. There’s a really good fit between the companies, and not just on the product that we talked about.”

In terms of data center traffic, Guardicore has “the leading east-west solution” and Akamai has a “great north-south solution,” Leighton said.

“We both feel the future is the merge of those two, but also a great cultural fit,” he said. “And that obviously is important to them as they merge into a bigger company, and it’s always very important for Akamai.”

Akamai‘s security offers include web application firewall (WAF), zero trust network access (ZTNA), domain name system (DNS) firewall, and secure web gateway (SWG). Those help prevent attackers and malware on employee devices from gaining access to enterprise infrastructure and applications.

However, enterprises also need a second layer of defense, Akamai said. That will block the spread of malware after it has gained a foothold within the corporate infrastructure. Guardicore‘s solution provides this capability.

Combatting Ransomware

“Given the recent surge in ransomware attacks and increasingly stringent compliance regulations, investing in technologies to reduce the spread of malware has become mission critical,” Leighton said.

Akamai is going to keep the entire sales team together and integrate it with its overlay team as well, he said. The company rolled out its latest partner program in January.

“So we do expect to see a lot of synergy there and we will start introducing Guardicore into our channel partners,” Leighton said.

Akamai’s Pavel Gurvich

Pavel Gurvich is Guardicore’s co-founder and CEO.

“Guardicore’s mission is to protect enterprises from damage caused by breaches, like ransomware, while safeguarding the critical assets at the heart of the network,” he said. “The customer is able to reduce risk in a holistic way across all products, managing from a single console, versus many products and machines. My team and I greatly look forward to joining Akamai to protect the user and the enterprise — no matter what the user is doing, or where end users and workloads are located.”