Microsoft confirmed rumors on Monday that it is acquiring Secure Islands, a 9-year-old cyber security firm based in Israel.
The company plans to keep selling Secure Islands’ product to its customers, while also incorporating the technology into Microsoft’s Azure Rights Management Service. There, the platform will offer one tool to help businesses secure data no matter where it’s stored.
Microsoft says its investing in this space because enterprise customers are required to keep data in less-than-ideal locations outside their control, like customer mobile devices, cloud storage vendors and other third party services.
“These realities make it more critical than ever to have solutions that prevent data loss and track information regardless of where it resides,” Microsoft Vice President Takeshi Numoto wrote in a Monday blog post. “These new capabilities, combined with the data classification in Windows and Office 365, will provide our customers with the industry’s most comprehensive data protection solution.”
The deal, which ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports is worth $77.5 million, marks the third Israeli security firm Microsoft has bought in the past year. It also acquired cloud security companies Adallom and Aorato in September and November 2014, respectively.
That’s in addition to other recent Israeli acquisitions, including Surface pen maker N-Trig and machine learning firm Equivio.
