Israeli founded U.S.-based cyber-security giant Imperva announced that it will acquire fellow Israeli cyber company jSonar, which provides advanced database security across all networks and cloud environments. With the transaction set to close as early as mid-October, the financial details of the deal have yet to be announced, though wouldn't surprise if ended up hitting 9 digits.
From compliance to data-security
By adding jSonar’s technologies to the war chest, Imperva will leverage the tech into a ‘cover all exits’ comprehensive approach to securing data, including on-premises, cloud, multi-cloud and Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS), delivering an integrated approach across data and applications. Additionally, jSonar’s analytics and Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) platform will be used throughout the Imperva solution stack.
As data-security efforts increase to handle complex and scaled threat activity, Lead Analyst at KuppingerCole Analysts AG Alexei Balaganski notes that the merge of both Israeli cyber warriors could potentially bring a game-changer to the market as “...organizations increasingly have to choose between best-of-breed yet disjointed security tools and an integrated suite... the potential of Imperva and jSonar represents a comprehensive integrated approach to securing data both through its complete life span and across a broad range of heterogeneous IT platforms, which entitles customers to get return from existing investments while gaining consolidated analytics, proactive protection and quick response capabilities.”
Imperva Data Security, which was founded by 3 Israeli entrepreneurs Shlomo Kramer, Amichai Shulman and Mickey Boodaei and acquired last year for $2.1 billion, discovers databases on the network, classifies sensitive data, detects database vulnerabilities, and applies security controls to data access. jSonar’s platform simplifies the process of establishing universal security, compliance, and privacy controls, enabling integration with all data repositories across any on-premises and cloud environment from within one platform while alleviating high costs and development efforts thanks to built-in automation and data-centric playbooks.
The evolution of modern data architecture has worked against security professionals, making securing data more difficult at every turn. Scale and complexity of data assets have grown exponentially and security teams are faced with the difficult task of expeditiously securing diverse environments while lacking estate-wide analytics and control. According to Imperva, combining the two data-security solutions will provide enterprises with not only an on-demand solution for today’s needs but also learning and adapting technologies to tackle the threats of “tomorrow” as well.
“Enterprises have shifted focus from compliance to data security while demanding lower costs and more measurable benefits,” says Pam Murphy, CEO of Imperva. “This combination of two uniquely qualified trailblazers will signal a new approach to data security that puts an emphasis on usability and value with sustained and complete coverage for three initiatives organizations need to implement – security, compliance and privacy.”
jSonar was founded in 2013 by CTO Ron Bennatan, who previously founded Gaurdium which was acquired by IBM, and VP R&D Ury Segal, who has been with Bennatan since Guardium. The company just raised $50 million at the beginning of the year and has a strong customer foothold in North America. With over 25 years of experience in data-security, Ron will take lead as the head of the new joint cyber venture aimed at developing sophisticated data-security technologies.
“While data grows at an exponential rate, budgets do not. Our mission has always been to develop solutions that solve the full-range of challenges in data security in a way that is efficient, simple to achieve, and provides tangible value beyond compliance,” says Ron Bennatan, CTO and Co-founder, jSonar. “We are thrilled to join forces with Imperva, who have been ushering in a new age of data protection in order to make security available to everyone.”
