Microsoft’s upcoming RiskIQ acquisition is a sensible and good move. And it’s the latest among big players to have a meaningful offering in threat intelligence.

That’s according to Rik Turner, principal analyst at Omdia. (Omdia and Channel Futures share a parent company, Informa.)

Microsoft is acquiring RiskIQ, a provider of global threat intelligence and attack surface management, in a deal reportedly worth $500 million.

RiskIQ helps customers discover and assess the security of their entire enterprise attack surface in the Microsoft cloud, AWS, other clouds, on premises, and from their supply chain. RiskIQ can help enterprises identify and remediate vulnerable assets before an attacker can capitalize on them.

Better Defense for Partners, Customers

Eric Doerr is Microsoft’s vice president of cloud security. In his blog, he wrote that Microsoft has been a leader in delivering end-to-end cloud-native security. It does so with Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Azure Defender and Microsoft Azure Sentinel. They help protect, detect and respond to threats in multicloud and hybrid cloud environments.

Microsoft’s Eric Doerr

“With the acquisition of RiskIQ, we will continue our mission to help customers and partners defend their growing digital estate against increasing cyber threats,” he said.

Microsoft didn’t say how much it’s paying for RiskIQ; however, Bloomberg reports the software giant will cough up more than $500 million.

Elias Manousos is RiskIQ’s co-founder and CEO.

RiskIQ’s Elias Manousos

“The vision and mission of RiskIQ is to provide unmatched internet visibility and insights to better protect and inform our customers and partners’ security programs,” he said. “We’re thrilled to add RiskIQ’s attack surface and threat intelligence solutions to the Microsoft security portfolio, extending and accelerating our impact. Our combined capabilities will enable best-in-class protection, investigations, and response against today’s threats.”

Scroll through our slideshow above for more on this acquisition and other cybersecurity news.