Forcepoint Acquires Skyfence

Forcepoint™ Acquires Skyfence to Extend its Leadership in Cloud Security & Data Leakage Prevention Solutions

Susan Helmick
February 8, 2017, 12:00 am CST
 
Integration of Skyfence with Forcepoint market leading web and IP protection capabilities furthers company’s mission to reinvent cybersecurity by focusing on people’s behaviors and motivations

Austin – February 8, 2017 – Global cybersecurity leader Forcepoint™ today announced the acquisition of the Skyfence business from Imperva. The acquisition plays a pivotal role in Forcepoint’s strategy to deliver cybersecurity systems that help customers understand people’s behaviors and intent as they interact with data and IP wherever it may reside, including fast-growing cloud applications.

“Forcepoint is committed to enabling our customers to empower individuals to leverage critical business data and intellectual property how, when and where they choose,” said Matthew P. Moynahan, chief executive officer of Forcepoint. “The integration of Skyfence across Forcepoint’s broad product portfolio will further deliver on this promise, while helping to reduce enterprise security risk.”

Integrating Skyfence’s cloud access security broker (CASB) capabilities with Forcepoint’s web security and data loss prevention (DLP) technologies will provide customers increased visibility, control and security as users interact with data wherever it resides, including within cloud applications. The integration also provides Forcepoint customers greater flexibility in deploying web security via on premise-, hybrid- and cloud-based solutions.

“As cloud applications become more pervasive, customers are trying to strike a balance between the benefits these services offer and the risks that exist,” said Kris Lamb, general manager of the Cloud Security business at Forcepoint. “Integrating Skyfence with Forcepoint’s cloud security platform will offer the best of both worlds. Businesses will feel comfortable providing the productivity benefits cloud services offer, while not jeopardizing the security of critical data and improving their overall governance and compliance posture.”

As more organizations migrate to cloud services, the CASB market is expected to experience significant growth. According to Gartner, “by 2020, 85% of large enterprises will use a cloud access security broker platform for their cloud services, which is up from less than 5% today.”1

Skyfence provides visibility and control over cloud applications approved for use by an organization (e.g., NetSuite, Office 365, Salesforce, Workday), as well as those employees might use without approval (e.g., Dropbox, G Suite and Box). Skyfence helps companies to determine which cloud applications are in use by employees, analyzes content in real-time to prevent malicious or unauthorized leakage and quickly identifies and blocks cyber-attacks. Integrating Forcepoint DLP with Skyfence will further broaden customers’ abilities to protect critical business and personal data.

Skyfence capabilities are particularly important to companies seeking to protect intellectual property, as well as those facing compliance requirements, such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) and Sarbanes Oxley (SOX).

The acquisition of Skyfence by Forcepoint extends a relationship launched in March 2015. At the time, Forcepoint (then Raytheon│Websense) entered into a licensing arrangement that enabled the company to embed the Skyfence Cloud App Catalog into the company’s web security gateway products.

Upon the close of the transaction, Skyfence technology and employees will join the Forcepoint team. The Skyfence team will continue to be based in Ramat Gan, Israel.