Proofpoint Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Illusive

Identity Threat Detection and Response technology extends Proofpoint’s people-centric security vision to thwart identity-based breaches, including ransomware

Proofpoint Inc., a leading cybersecurity and compliance company, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Illusive, a leader and pioneer in Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR)​. The acquisition is expected to close by January 2023, subject to customary closing conditions.

With this acquisition, Proofpoint will enhance its market-leading threat and information protection platforms by adding proactive identity risk discovery and remediation as well as a strong post-breach defense capability, providing a unified solution that extends protection across the entire attack chain for critical threats like ransomware​ and data breaches.

The global increase in cyberattacks has been enabled by attackers shifting their tactics and focus to identity-based attacks, with 84% of organizations falling victim to an identity-related breach in the past year. These attacks traverse through identities – from privilege escalation to lateral movement and abuse of Active Directory and cloud environments, such as Microsoft 365. With Illusive, Proofpoint’s unique visibility into the identities that are attacked and vulnerable across an organization will equip enterprises with unprecedented insights into their privileged access attack surface and uniquely powerful control to better protect their Very Attacked People (VAPs).

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“It’s currently far too easy for an attacker to turn one compromised identity into an organization-wide ransomware incident or data breach,” said Ryan Kalember, executive vice president, cybersecurity strategy, Proofpoint. “The acquisition of Illusive reinforces Proofpoint’s commitment to innovation and growth, bringing market-defining technology to make threat actors’ jobs as difficult as possible.”

Illusive’s solutions are trusted by leading multinational corporations, protecting some of the world’s best-known brands by taking away what attackers need to complete their crime: privileged account access.

“Illusive is solving a problem that others cannot by focusing on protecting identity security vulnerabilities and stopping the menace of ransomware, which has galvanized worldwide demand for our solution,” said Ofer Israeli, founder and CEO, Illusive. “We are thrilled to join Proofpoint and add our unique approach to ITDR to its people-centric security vision, helping organizations remediate privileged identity risks and understand potential ramifications of compromise, such as access to critical data and intellectual property.”

Together, Proofpoint and Illusive will deliver comprehensive identity security as part of Proofpoint’s threat protection platform including:

• Automatic discovery and remediation of identity vulnerabilities before attackers exploit them with Illusive Spotlight™: with its agentless approach, Illusive Spotlight delivers unparalleled visibility into vulnerable identities by scanning directory structures (e.g., Active Directory), privileged access management (PAM) solutions, endpoints, servers and services, revealing the gaps between the intention of an organization’s identity security policies and the reality of their environment.
• Detection and response to identity threats to stop privilege escalation and lateral movement to critical assets with Illusive Shadow™: unlike other deception technologies that deploy agents or honeypots which can tip off or be exploited by the attacker, Illusive Shadow’s agentless architecture prevents attacker detection and is undefeated in over 150 red team exercises. It allows organizations to deterministically accelerate threat detection by identifying threats based on attacker interaction with deceptions, not probabilistic controls based on signatures or behaviors.

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