Arctic Wolf Networks Inc., a heavily funded cybersecurity startup, today announced plans to acquire BlackBerry Ltd.’s Cylance unit.

BlackBerry will receive $160 million in cash and 5.5 million Arctic Wolf shares. Because the latter company is privately held, the value of the shares was not disclosed. Arctic Wolf received a $4.3 billion valuation following its most recent funding round in 2021.

BlackBerry, once the world’s top smartphone maker, now generates its revenue from two main sources: software for connected devices and cybersecurity tools. In the former market, the company’s flagship offering is an operating system called QNX mainly used to power smart car subsystems. BlackBerry’s cybersecurity portfolio includes encrypted messaging apps and breach prevention tools. 

Cylance became part of the company’s cybersecurity portfolio through a 2018 acquisition. The BlackBerry unit sells a software platform for protecting endpoints such as employee workstations. It can spot ransomware, zero-day or unpatched threats and other types of malicious activity.

One of Cylance’s main selling points is its agent, the lightweight program the platform installs on devices to scan them for malware. BlackBerry says the program requires a small fraction of the hardware resources used by rival tools, which leaves more processor capacity for employees’ applications. Moreover, the agent doesn’t require an internet connection to work.

Cylance provides an artificial intelligence assistant that helps cybersecurity teams analyze breach alerts. If a hacker deploys a malicious script in a company’s network, the assistant can explain what systems the script modified and how it modified them. Administrators can create automation workflows that respond to malicious activity without human input.

Arctic Wolf is a major provider of managed cybersecurity services. It has raised about $900 million in venture and debt funding since launch. Earlier this year, it disclosed that its customer base includes more than 5,200 organizations.

The company helps customers fix vulnerabilities in their infrastructure, identify malicious activity and remediate breaches. Its services are powered by an internally developed platform called Aurora. The software collects data from a company’s existing cybersecurity tools, correlates the information with threat intelligence and uses AI to spot potential signs of hacking.

Cylance is among the cybersecurity tools with which Aurora integrates. “We will continue to support (and further expand) all our existing platform integrations, including those with the more than 15 endpoint security vendors we support today,” Dan Schiappa, Arctic Wolf’s chief product and services officer, wrote in a blog post today.

As for Cylance, the company plans to integrate the BlackBerry unit’s technology into its Aurora platform. The latter offering currently processes more than 7 trillion cybersecurity-related data points per week from customer environments. Arctic Wolf will use Cylance’s technology to analyze the data collected by Aurora for malicious activity.

BlackBerry expects to close the sale by the end of February. 

Image: Arctic Wolf