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DeviceLock Acquired by Cyberprotection Vendor Acronis
In a move to bolster and broaden its data privacy capabilities for end users, cyber and data protection vendor Acronis has acquired data loss prevention (DLP) player DeviceLock. The acquisition directly aligns with the increasingly prevalent role that data privacy plays within the sphere of cybersecurity.
The Swiss-based cyberprotection company received $147 million in funding from Goldman Sachs to support its North American expansion during the fall of 2019, one of many investments the company has received and leveraged for growth since its inception in 2003. The DeviceLock acquisition represents an effort to streamline the number of vendor solutions that end users are implementing within their environments, a trend observed by Acronis’ chief cyber and operating officer, Gaidar Magdanurov.
Acronis provides a unique combination of features within the backup and data protection sphere, including AI-powered protection technology coupled with blockchain-based data authentication across virtual, physical, cloud, and mobile environments. The company’s product offerings are intended for service providers and IT professionals, effectively merging data protection and cybersecurity through the Acronis Cyber Platform.
DeviceLock’s presence in the data leakage prevention vendor landscape extends to over 5,000 organizations globally, and its product offerings emphasize protection of data leaks for data in use, data in motion, and data at rest from corporate endpoint devices. The service offering aims to reduce the loss of information within the organization through the multifaceted DeviceLock Agents, thus ensuring compliance and security of the business’ sensitive data.
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Our Take
The name of the game is acquisition. In the last few weeks, within the data discovery and classification space as well as the privacy program management software sphere, we have witnessed a plethora of mergers and acquisitions. The logical leap may be to the current economic outlook as we slowly emerge from the depths of a multi-month pandemic; however, I would like to think there is a slightly different strategic angle at work.
Data protection used to refer almost exclusively to backup solutions. With the influx of data privacy and protection regulations over the past few years (think GDPR), data protection has taken on a slightly different meaning and now encompasses both technical and process-driven components. Data security has emerged as a foundational pillar that organizations must observe and approach with care and foresight or risk potentially detrimental breaches as well as regulatory and compliance violations. All the while bearing in mind the already-complex environment characterized by several different products and a limited amount of time and resourcing dedicated to ensuring each respective solution is implemented properly and continues to run effectively.
The solution? Well, consolidation, of course! And so, the acquisition of a DLP vendor by a key player in the cyber and data protection marketspace makes sense. As Acronis expands its capabilities to offer data leak prevention for its current user base, it will be interesting to watch and see if like-minded vendors in the data protection space follow suit.