Arctic Wolf to acquire Cylance

Arctic Wolf® and BlackBerry have entered into a definitive agreement for Arctic Wolf to acquire BlackBerry’s Cylance® endpoint security assets. Cylance is the pioneer of AI-based endpoint protection trusted by thousands of organisations around the world. With this acquisition, Arctic Wolf ushers in a new era of simplicity, flexibility, and outcomes to the endpoint security market, delivering the security operations results customers have been asking for.

Under the terms of the agreement, BlackBerry will sell its Cylance assets to Arctic Wolf for $160 million of cash, subject to certain adjustments, and approximately 5.5 million common shares of Arctic Wolf. After allowing for the purchase price adjustments, BlackBerry will receive approximately $80 million of cash at closing and approximately $40 million of cash one year following the closing.

The proposed transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in BlackBerry’s fourth fiscal quarter.

Arctic Wolf is a leader in AI-powered security operations, delivering its solutions from a single open platform to meet customers’ needs for effective, comprehensive, and reliable security outcomes. With the addition of Cylance’s trailblazing suite of endpoint security capabilities and enhanced AI functionality, Arctic Wolf will bolster its position as a market-leading platform provider, offering coverage from the endpoint to the edge.

As many organisations are looking to consolidate an increasing number of disparate security tools, there is a rapidly growing demand for end-to-end platforms.

“Security has an operations and effectiveness problem and endpoint solutions alone have failed to live up to the outcomes they have promised for years,” said Nick Schneider, president and chief executive officer, Arctic Wolf. “By incorporating Cylance’s endpoint security capabilities into our open-XDR Aurora platform, we will be addressing a rampant need for a truly unified, effective security operations that delivers better outcomes for customers. We believe we will be able to rapidly eliminate alert fatigue, reduce total risk exposure, and help customers unlock further value with our warranty and insurability programmes.”

“I am incredibly excited to partner with Arctic Wolf through this agreement,” said John Giamatteo, chief executive officer of BlackBerry. “We see this transaction as a win-win for our shareholders and all other stakeholders. Our customers will realise the benefits of continuity of service and the expertise that a global cybersecurity leader like Arctic Wolf provides. Arctic Wolf benefits by adding Cylance’s endpoint security solutions to its native platform. Finally, as Arctic Wolf leverages its scale to build upon and grow the Cylance business, BlackBerry will benefit as a reseller of the portfolio to our large government customers and as a shareholder of the company.”

There will be no impact to BlackBerry’s Secure Communications portfolio of businesses, which include BlackBerry® UEM, BlackBerry® AtHoc® and BlackBerry® SecuSUITE®. The Secure Communications business will remain an integral part of the BlackBerry portfolio.

Redefining the Modern Security Platform for Customers and Partners

With the addition of a native endpoint security solution to its portfolio, Arctic Wolf is building one of the largest open XDR security platforms in the industry, enabling customers and partners to have the option to leverage more than 15 supported endpoint solutions. Arctic Wolf is currently the only security operations leader offering this type of optionality, which combined with its comprehensive approach to minimising risk through security operations, makes it uniquely positioned to drive value for customers of all sizes and security maturity.

Cylance has a long history of recognition as a market leader, known for stopping 98% of attacks before they begin and trusted by many of the world’s leading organisations for its AI-driven prevention and detection. Recently, Cylance was named 2024 Customers’ Choice for endpoint protection platforms (EPP) by Gartner® Peer Insights™ for the second consecutive year. By integrating Cylance into its portfolio, Arctic Wolf will provide a world-class endpoint protection solution that rivals the best in the industry, complementing its endpoint offering with one of the largest commercial SOCs in the world that delivers unified security operations and comprehensive attack surface coverage.

“Organisations are looking to unify tools and operations via a single platform that can effectively analyse and respond to security threats, drive consistent security outcomes, and demonstrably minimise risk,” said Dan Schiappa, chief product and services officer, Arctic Wolf. “In the past, this has been a near-impossible, costly goal for resource-constrained leaders. By adding endpoint security to our platform, we will be delivering the security outcomes organisations want in one, frictionless operational platform to go toe-to-toe with today’s advanced threats, while maintaining our commitment to customers and partners leveraging other endpoint solutions.”

Perella Weinberg Partners LP served as exclusive financial adviser to BlackBerry and Morrison Foerster LLP served as legal adviser to BlackBerry. Cooley LLP served as legal adviser to Arctic Wolf.