Google to buy cybersecurity firm Mandiant for more than $5 billion

March 8 (UPI) -- Tech giant Google announced Tuesday that it's buying cybersecurity firm Mandiant for more than $5 billion to shore up protection for cloud users, the companies said.

Google said the all-cash deal is valued at about $5.4 billion.

The U.S. tech company says acquiring Mandiant will help customers "address their most important security challenges."

"Organizations around the world are facing unprecedented cybersecurity challenges as the sophistication and severity of attacks that were previously used to target major governments are now being used to target companies in every industry," Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said in a statement.

Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia testifies before the Senate intelligence committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on February 23, 2021. File Photo by Drew Angerer/UPI

Formerly known as FireEye, Mandiant said Tuesday that it has more than 600 consultants who respond to thousands of security breaches each year.

"There has never been a more critical time in cybersecurity," Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia said in a statement. "Since our founding in 2004, Mandiant's mission has been to combat cyber attacks and protect our customers from the latest threats."

Last year, Mandiant said that it suspected that Chinese state-sponsored hackers had infiltrated U.S. and European government organizations as well as defense and technology companies. In a video posted to YouTube, the company outlined steps that Chinese hackers took in setting up an "operational email account" to launch a cyberattack.

Mandiant also played a role in helping Microsoft uncover the Russia-linked SolarWinds hack that attacked government systems in 2020.