Fortinet, an integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions provider, has acquired ZoneFox, a cloud-based insider threat detection and response company headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The acquisition encompasses both ZoneFox’s technology and its entire team.

Fortinet believes the integration of ZoneFox’s machine learning-based threat-hunting technology will complement its FortiClient endpoint security.

Faster response

The firm also expects that the new endpoint security capabilities provided by ZoneFox will allow enterprise organisations to better leverage machine learning to detect anomalous behaviour and provide an even faster response to insider threats.

Jamie Graves, CEO and founder of ZoneFox, said: “We’re pleased to join the Fortinet team and bring together our shared vision of alleviating CISO concerns about insider threats. Integrating our solution with the Fortinet Security Fabric will allow us to extend our reach to a broad spectrum of Fortinet and third-party solutions to solve customers’ most difficult challenges in network security.”

Graves said he was honoured to be embarking on the next step of the ZoneFox journey, adding that the company would always have its roots in Scotland.

He said: “ZoneFox will remain part of the local Scottish Security community to both access and develop talent. I would like to thank everyone who has supported us on the journey so far; Scottish Enterprise, Edinburgh Napier University, our seed and Angel Investors, mentors, customers, colleagues, friends, and family.”

Ken Xie, founder and CEO, Fortinet, said: “Enterprise organisations are experiencing a dramatic increase in the number of endpoints and users accessing data and cloud resources, which is also increasing the need to defend against insider threats.

“In fact, 30% of breaches involved insiders acting negligently or maliciously according to the 2018 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report. By combining ZoneFox’s cloud-based threat-hunting technology with Fortinet’s existing endpoint and SIEM security offerings, we are well positioned to provide our customers with an integrated approach to defend against insider threats, eliminate network blind spots and protect today’s expanding attack surface with automation and machine learning.”