Check Point Software Technologies has bought Atmosec, an Israel-based early stage startup specializing in the discovery and disconnection of malicious software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, the companies announced.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close by mid-September 2023.
This is technology M&A deal number 252 that MSSP Alert and sister site ChannelE2E have covered so far in 2023.
A Closer Look at Atmosec
Atmosec was founded in January 2021 and employs 17 people. The company maintains offices in Tel Aviv, Israel and Chicago.
Check Point is a publicly-held major player in IT cybersecurity with roughly 6,000 employees spanning offices in the U.S. and Israel.
Atmosec's researchers estimate that there are approximately 800 SaaS applications in use without IT's knowledge. In addition, counting hundreds of third-party application connected to platforms, such as Microsoft’s Office 365 and Slack, the number balloons even more.
The impact is that an expanding SaaS landscape widens the potential attack surface and also introduces many applications that could be harmful or misused to leak sensitive information, often bypassing proper IT authorization, the companies said.
“The shift to SaaS applications introduces specific challenges, notably in the realm of malicious SaaS-to-SaaS communications,” said Nataly Kremer, Check Point chief product officer and head of research and development.
She continued, “Atmosec´s capabilities in SaaS discovery, risk assessment, and full visibility are instrumental in addressing these challenges. Integrating Atmosec’s technology into Check Point Infinity sets us to deliver one of the industry's most secure SASE solutions, enabling organizations to effectively manage SaaS security, prevent data leaks, unauthorized access, and malware dissemination, and ensure a robust, adaptive zero trust environment.”
Here are the key features of Atmosec's technology:
- Quick discovery and disconnection of malicious SaaS applications, completed in under 10 minutes
- Preventing third-party SaaS applications from communicating with an enterprise’s SaaS environment
- Providing full visibility into authorized and unauthorized SaaS applications
- Fix misconfigurations within SaaS applications such as publicly exposed repositories
- Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) to access the application
Check Point Buys Perimeter 81
Previously, Check Point acquires Perimeter 81, a security service edge (SSE) company, in August 2023. Under the terms of the agreement, Check Point paid $490 million for Perimeter 81 on a cash free, debt free basis.
Perimeter 81, launched in 2018, has some 200 employees. It serves more than 3,000 customers worldwide.
Check Point appears to have bought into a lucrative, rapidly growing market. Researcher Gartner sees the SASE market hitting $20B-plus by 2026, emphasizing the need for businesses to adopt a consolidated security architecture.
