Mandiant is an American

cybersecurity Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, the ...

firm and a subsidiary of

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

. It rose to prominence in February 2013 when it released a report directly implicating China in

cyber espionage Cyber may refer to: Computing and the Internet * ''Cyber-'', from cybernetics, a transdisciplinary approach for exploring regulatory and purposive systems Crime and security * Cyber crime, crime that involves computers and networks ** Conventio ...

. In December 2013, Mandiant was acquired by

FireEye Trellix (formerly FireEye and McAfee Enterprise) is a privately held cybersecurity company founded in 2022. It has been involved in the detection and prevention of major cyber attacks. It provides hardware, software, and services to investigat ...

for $1 billion, who eventually sold the FireEye product line, name, and its employees to

Symphony Technology Group Symphony Technology Group (STG) is an American private equity firm based in Menlo Park, California. Its Chairman and CEO is Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, who founded the firm in 2002. Investments The company has investments in the following companies: ...

for $1.2 billion in June 2021. In March 2022, Google announced that it would acquire the company for $5.4billion and integrate it into its

Google Cloud Google Cloud Platform offers numerous integrated cloud-computing services, including compute, network, and storage. Products Past and present products under the Google Cloud platform include: Current * Google Cloud Datastore, a NoSQL databa ...

division, with the firm becoming fully incorporated in September 2022.

Founding

Kevin Mandia, a former

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

officer who serves as the company's

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

, founded Mandiant as Red Cliff Consulting in 2004 before

rebranding Rebranding is a marketing strategy in which a new name, term, symbol, design, concept or combination thereof is created for an established brand with the intention of developing a new, differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investors ...

to its current name in 2006. In 2011, Mandiant received funding from

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneurs ...

and One Equity Partners to expand its staff and grow its

business-to-business Business-to-business (B2B or, in some countries, BtoB) is a situation where one business makes a commercial transaction with another. This typically occurs when: * A business is sourcing materials for their production process for output (e.g., a ...

operations, providing incident response and general security consulting along with incident management products to major global organizations, governments, and

Fortune 100 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along w ...

companies.

History

Mandiant is the creator of OpenIOC (Open Indicators of Compromise), an extensible

XML schema An XML schema is a description of a type of Extensible Markup Language, XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed ...

for the description of technical characteristics that identify

threats A threat is a communication of intent to inflict harm or loss on another person. Intimidation is a tactic used between conflicting parties to make the other timid or psychologically insecure for coercion or control. The act of intimidation for co ...

, security hackers' methodologies, and evidence of compromise. In 2012, its revenues were over $100 million, up 76% from 2011. In February 2013, Mandiant released a report documenting evidence of cyber attacks by the

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, ...

, specifically

Pudong Pudong is a district of Shanghai located east of the Huangpu, the river which flows through central Shanghai. The name ''Pudong'' was originally applied to the Huangpu's east bank, directly across from the west bank or Puxi, the historic city ...

-based

PLA Unit 61398 PLA Unit 61398 (also known as APT 1, Comment Crew, Comment Panda, GIF89a, and Byzantine Candor) (, Pinyin: 61398 ''bùduì'') is the Military Unit Cover Designator (MUCD) of a People's Liberation Army advanced persistent threat unit that has be ...

, targeting at least 141 organizations in the United States and other

English-speaking countries The following is a list of English-speaking population by country, including information on both native speakers and second-language speakers. List * The European Union is a supranational union composed of 27 member states. The total Engl ...

extending as far back as 2006. In the report, Mandiant referred to the espionage unit as "APT1". In December 2013, Mandiant was acquired by

for $1 billion. In October 2020, the company announced Mandiant Advantage, a subscription-based

SaaS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is cons ...

platform designed to augment and automate security response teams which combined the threat intelligence gathered by Mandiant and data from cyber incident response engagements; in December, the company investigated a major

supply chain attack A supply chain attack is a cyber-attack that seeks to damage an organization by targeting less secure elements in the supply chain. A supply chain attack can occur in any industry, from the financial sector, oil industry, to a government sector. ...

SolarWinds SolarWinds Corporation is an American company that develops software for businesses to help manage their networks, systems, and information technology infrastructure. It is headquartered in Austin, Texas, with sales and product development offi ...

on U.S. government infrastructure. In May 2021, Mandiant was contracted to assist in the response to a ransomware incident impacting

Colonial Pipeline The Colonial Pipeline is the largest pipeline system for refined oil products in the U.S.East Coast of the U.S. In June, the company was spun off FireEye as part of the latter's acquisition by

. In August, the company acquired Intrigue, which specialized in surface management. In 2022, ''Axios'' reported that Mandiant reporters identified a pro-

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

disinformation campaign targeting American voters ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

Acquisition by Google

In March 2022, it was announced that the company would be acquired by

for $5.4 billion and subsequently integrated into the

division. Following the announcement, ''Fortune'' reported that while the deal could face antitrust scrutiny, the acquisition "could help increase competition" rather than harm it. In April 2022, it was reported that the Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division was probing the deal for potential violations of federal antitrust law. However, Mandiant revealed in July 2022 that the DOJ granted the acquisition approval. Following a review over potential competition concerns, the

Australian Competition & Consumer Commission The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is the chief competition regulator of the Government of Australia, located within the Department of the Treasury. It was established in 1995 with the amalgamation of the Australian Tra ...

(ACCC) announced it would not oppose the deal. On September 12, 2022, the deal closed and integration between Mandiant and Google Cloud began. Following the acquisition, Mandiant was allowed to maintain its brand as a subsidiary of Google Cloud.

References

External links

* {{Authority control 2004 establishments in Virginia 2022 mergers and acquisitions American companies established in 2004 Companies based in Alexandria, Virginia Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Computer security software companies Google acquisitions Google Cloud Software companies based in Virginia Software companies established in 2004