How BlackBerry Is Bolstering Its Cybersecurity Efforts Through Cylance Acquisition

By Noah Long ● Nov 18, 2018

Earlier this month, it was rumored that Blackberry was going to buy cybersecurity company Cylance. The deal — which was valued at about $1.4 billion — was confirmed this past week.

What does this mean? This deal further proves that BlackBerry is moving more towards an enterprise security model as the company stopped building phones in-house as of 2016. And BlackBerry created chip-level security products for devices powered by iOS and Android. BlackBerry is also known for building Internet of Things device security and connected car technology as well.

“Cylance’s leadership in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity will immediately complement our entire portfolio, UEM and QNX in particular. We are very excited to onboard their team and leverage our newly combined expertise,” said BlackBerry CEO and Executive Chairman John Chen in a company announcement. “We believe adding Cylance’s capabilities to our trusted advantages in privacy, secure mobility, and embedded systems will make BlackBerry Spark indispensable to realizing the Enterprise of Things.”

Cylance provides endpoint protection and antivirus services for its 3,500 enterprise clients, which include 100 out of the Fortune 500. And Cylance has a number of contracts with state and federal government agencies. Once the deal closes, Cylance will become a separate business unit within BlackBerry according to CNBC.

“Our highly skilled cybersecurity workforce and market leadership in next-generation endpoint solutions will be a perfect fit within BlackBerry where our customers, teams and technologies will gain immediate benefits from BlackBerry’s global reach,” added Cylance CEO, chairman, and co-founder Stuart McClure. “We are eager to leverage BlackBerry’s mobility and security strengths to adapt our advanced AI technology to deliver a single platform.”

Prior to the acquisition, Cylance raised $300 million in funding from Blackstone, DFJ, Khosla Ventures, Dell Technologies and KKR and the company was reportedly planning to go public.