Cloudflare sets $162-million buy of Area 1 Security 

Cloudflare has agreed to acquire Area 1 Security whose cloud-native platform, which works seamlessly with any email offering, stops phishing attacks by preemptively discovering and eliminating them before they can inflict damage in a corporate environment. 

Under the terms of the agreement, Cloudflare will acquire Area 1 Security for approximately $162 million.The acquisition is expected to close early in the second quarter of 2022 and is subject to customary closing conditions.

“Email is the largest cyber attack vector on the internet, which makes integrated email security critical to any true Zero Trust network. We’re welcoming Area 1 Security to help make Cloudflare’s platform the clear leader in Zero Trust,” said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare. 

“To us, the future of Zero Trust includes an integrated, one-click approach to securing all of an organisation’s applications, including its most ubiquitous cloud application, email,” said Prince. “Together, we expect we’ll be delivering the fastest, most effective, and most reliable email security on the market.”

As email continues to be an attractive entry point for increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, businesses of all sizes need to consider how to integrate email solutions into their overall security stack and bolster it with global threat intelligence.

“Today, email is a business’ most-used cloud application (but) it’s unfortunately unprotected. We estimate that more than 90% of cyber security damages are the result of just one thing — phishing,” said Patrick Sweeney, CEO and president of Area 1 Security.

“By combining our leading phishing protection and threat intelligence capabilities with Cloudflare’s global network, data capabilities, and Zero Trust platform we truly believe that together we can help companies of any size better secure their entire network infrastructure and better protect against the most destructive cyber risks,” said Sweeney.

Cloudflare entered the email security market in 2021 with the launch of its Advanced Email Security Suite and additional tools to create custom email addresses, manage incoming email routing, and prevent email spoofing and phishing on outgoing emails. 

Because Cloudflare’s global network blocks an average of 86 billion cyber threats each day, the company has threat intelligence data that can allow it to more effectively filter out targeted phishing attacks (spear phishing) and other security threats that legacy email security solutions and API-only email security offerings can miss. 

Area 1 Security has long taken a preemptive approach to email security to stop phishing campaigns during the earliest stages of an attack cycle. By combining Area 1 Security’s highly scalable technology and years of experience in email protection with Cloudflare’s global network, the two companies will provide a holistic Zero Trust solution that customers can enable through Cloudflare’s global edge.