Proofpoint To Buy Weblife For $60M To Enhance Personal Email Protection Capabilities
Proofpoint plans to purchase browser isolation offerings vendor Weblife.io to extend its advanced threat protection capabilities into personal email.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company said its proposed acquisition of Los Angeles-based Weblife will enable enterprises to secure their corporate and personal email from advanced threats and compliance risks. Weblife's capabilities will be integrated into a separate module within the Targeted Attack Protection advanced threat suite, and will be available in the first half of 2018.
"In an era of constant connectivity and eroding boundaries between a professional and personal digital life, it is critical to have email protection that is both broad and deep," Gary Steele, Proofpoint's CEO, said in a statement. "The acquisition of Weblife.io gives us greater ability to help protect our customers from today's rapidly evolving cyberattacks."
Combining Weblife's browser isolation technology with Proofpoint's threat detection and intelligence capabilities will deliver comprehensive protection from malware and credential-stealing phishing links, according to the company. A fully cloud-based deployment, meanwhile, protects employees working on and off the corporate network while delivering a seamless user experience.
And native privacy protections make it possible for organizations to protect users and corporate assets from threats while preserving end-user privacy and complying with global data privacy regulations such as the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the company said.
"Organizations are having to confront the reality that employees will check their personal email from the corporate network, and will also use their corporate devices to check their email at home after work, on the road, and everywhere in between," David Melnick, Weblife's CEO, said in a statement.
The deal is expected to close this quarter and isn't expected to have any material impact on Proofpoint's billings, revenue, net income or free cash flow for the current quarter or the 2018 fiscal year. Weblife was founded in 2013 and currently employs 18 people, according to LinkedIn.
Proofpoint's stock was at $92.39 in pre-market trading Wednesday. The company didn't immediately respond to requests for additional comment.
As employees increasingly access corporate data in a number of different ways, companies must take it upon themselves to safeguard information no matter where it resides, according to Kevin West, CEO of Brookline, Mass.-based K logix Security.
Companies are slowly maturing their data classification programs to align with data security and building out policies around what data users can have access to, West said. As this process evolves, West said corporations are increasingly turning to solution providers to protect the integrity of their data regardless of where it resides.
"Extending protection into personal email is really in the best interest of any corporate executive that doesn't have their head in the sand," K logix Security's West said. "This sounds positive."
This is Proofpoint's second acquisition in November and comes just three weeks after the company agreed to acquire messaging security and threat intelligence provider Cloudmark for $110 million. Cloudmark has visibility spanning ISPs and mobile carriers worldwide and correlates email threat telemetry data with malware campaigns and targeted attacks like spearphishing.
Proofpoint's channel organization, however, has seen some turnover in 2017, with global channel chief Dee Dee Acquista leaving the company in January and becoming SentinelOne's new head of worldwide channels in April. And senior director of North American channels Jon Bove left Proofpoint after just one year in September to return to Fortinet as vice president of North American channels.