By Chinenye Anuforo
Sophos cybersecurity solutions, has announced the successful completion of its acquisition of Secureworks. The all-cash transaction, valued at approximately $859 million, creates the industry’s leading pure-play cybersecurity provider of Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services, supporting more than 28,000 organizations worldwide. Secureworks’ common stock has ceased trading on Nasdaq as a result of the acquisition. Sophos is backed by Thoma Bravo, a leading software investment firm.
The strategic move significantly strengthens Sophos’ ability to deliver an unparalleled security operations platform. The platform boasts hundreds of built-in integrations, enabling adaptive protection, detection, and response to mitigate increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. This open and scalable approach empowers organizations, especially those with complex IT environments, to safeguard both current and future technology investments, maximizing operational efficiencies and return on cybersecurity spend.
The acquisition also expands the capabilities of Sophos X-Ops, incorporating the expertise of the Secureworks Counter Threat Unit and their experienced security operations and advisory teams.
As a channel-first cybersecurity provider, Sophos reaffirms its commitment to delivering cutting-edge security services and technologies to its global network of resellers, Managed Service Providers (MSPs), and Managed Security Services Providers (MSSPs). This commitment includes expanding their reach, improving operational scalability, and providing stronger defenses against the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats.
“The market is embracing MDR as a clear means to deliver positive cybersecurity outcomes, and this has meant rapid growth in the category,” said Joe Levy, CEO, Sophos. “Sophos is differentiated by our very mature competencies in ransomware detection, malware analysis and threat actor tradecraft. These defenses are further augmented by Sophos’ native artificial intelligence (AI), first innovated by our globally peer recognized AI team nearly a decade ago, and embedded in our MDR, endpoint, network, email, and cloud security to more effectively neutralize and stop threats. With the integration of Secureworks, our expanded services and product portfolio will provide even stronger end-to-end security solutions that will include identity threat detection and response (ITDR), next-gen SIEM and managed risk, all in a single open platform.”
Levy added, “We will also be able to further advance our AI, threat intelligence and attack research through more diverse and deeper global telemetry that is analyst-tuned for the real-world. At every level, we are very excited about this next accelerated chapter for Sophos.”