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AWS acquires threat detection firm Sqrrl

Sqrrl's team has past connections to US intelligence agencies.
Written by Charlie Osborne, Contributing Writer

Amazon's cloud business has snapped up Sqrrl, a threat detection software firm with former ties to the US National Security Agency (NSA).

On Tuesday, Sqrrl confirmed the deal through a message posted on the firm's website.

According to Sqrrl CEO Mark Terenzoni, the acquisition represents a milestone in Sqrrl's journey, and by joining the Amazon Web Services (AWS) team, both companies will be able to "work together on customer offerings for the future."

"For now, it is business as usual at Sqrrl," Terenzoni said. "We will continue to work with customers to provide advanced threat hunting capabilities. And, over time, we'll work with AWS to do even more on your behalf."

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, Axios reported in December a potential deal estimate of at least $40 million.

Sqrrl's flagship solution is the Threat Hunting Platform, a system designed for cybersecurity teams which connects link analysis, machine learning algorithms, and multi-petabyte scalability to assist them in detecting and tracking down enterprise threats.

Cambridge, Massachusetts Sqrrl has previously secured $26.5 million in funding over four rounds of investment. Spring Lake Equity Partners, Accomplice, Atlas Venture, and The Yard Ventures are among the startup's investors.

As reported by CNBC, the startup also has previous ties to the NSA. A team of core "creators, committers and contributors" for the US agency's Accumulo open-source database software went on to create Sqrrl.

See also: Amazon adds voice control to Alexa app for Android

The acquisition seems to make sense, given the startup's experience with intelligence agencies and their security requirements. Back in November, AWS announced Secret Region, a selection of data centers reserved for the US intelligence community and other government agencies working with secret-level datasets.

ZDNet has reached out to AWS and will update if we hear back.

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