Microsoft Acquires Secure Islands For Data Protection

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Microsoft has confirmed its purchase of partner company Secure Islands Technologies, an Israeli business specializing in advanced data protection, classification, and loss-prevention technologies.

While the agreement's price tag was not publicly disclosed, ZDNet reports Microsoft purchased Secure Islands for about $77.5 million. The company's current client list includes OSRAM, Credit Suisse, UBS, and Vodafone.

Microsoft already uses Secure Islands for data protection within Azure Rights Management Service, its cloud-based information-protection service.

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The target focus of the acquisition is enterprise data security. As people conduct more work on mobile devices, and businesses share information with partners and customers, a growing amount of data is traveling outside corporate control.

"These realities make it more critical than ever to have solutions that prevent data loss and track information regardless of where it resides," wrote Takeshi Numoto, Microsoft's corporate vice president for cloud and enterprise marketing, in a blog post.

Following the acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approval, Microsoft will integrate Secure Islands' technologies into Azure Rights Management Service. Its plan is to create a more flexible architecture in order to meet advanced security and compliance requirements.

Numoto explains the Secure Islands acquisition will improve Microsoft's ability to secure data across on-premises systems and cloud services beyond Azure, including Office 365, third-party services, and iOS, Android, and Windows platforms.

Secure Islands is the third Israeli security company Microsoft has acquired since November 2014.

About one year ago Microsoft purchased enterprise security firm Aorato, which was created in 2011 by veterans of the Israel Defense Forces. The company, which has since been renamed Advanced Threat Analytics, built technologies that leveraged machine learning to detect potential threats on a corporate network.

The trend continued in July 2015, when Microsoft acquired Israeli cloud security business Adallom for $320 million. At the time of purchase, Adallom had recently integrated with Check Point's Threat Emulation sandboxing capabilities to better detect zero-day vulnerabilities and potentially harmful activity in cloud-based content.

Security aside, Microsoft also purchased Israeli digital pen producer N-trig, the company behind the pen accompanying the Surface Pro 3. The acquisition was reported in February 2015, roughly eight months before the debut of the new Surface Pen.