Arctic Wolf, an American company specializing in cybersecurity software and services, announced on December 16 that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of Cylance, a division of BlackBerry responsible for securing terminals. As part of this transaction, which should be finalized by the end of February, BlackBerry will receive $160 million in cash (152 million euros) as well as 5.5 million common shares of Arctic Wolf.
Malware scanning and intelligent agent
Created in 2015 by former employees of McAfee and Intel, Cylance develops a software platform for endpoint protection, primarily employee workstations. This solution is thus capable of detecting various malicious activities, such as ransomware and 0-day vulnerabilities. Malware scanning is carried out by a lightweight client, requiring few hardware resources to operate. The company also deploys an intelligent agent, which can explain the methods used by cybercriminals.
Arctic Wolf, for its part, is developing a solution called “Aurora”, which maps the cybersecurity tools present at a client and uses threat intelligence data to detect hacking risks. The American company, which claims 5,200 customers, claims to analyze more than 7 trillion security events per week. With this acquisition, Cylance’s technology should be integrated into the Arctic Wolf platform, in order to better detect malicious activities.
Cylance had become a burden for BlackBerry
John Giamatteo, CEO of BlackBerry, welcomes in a press release a “win-win operation for [ses] shareholders and all stakeholders”. But everything is not so rosy. The transaction is a setback for the former phone manufacturer, which bought Cylance in 2018 for… 1.4 billion dollars (1.33 billion euros). At the time, BlackBerry presented this M&A operation as a key step in its shift towards business services, including cybersecurity solutions and the provision of software for connected devices.
However, over time, Cylance had become a burden for the Canadian company, posting a record loss of $51 million (48 million euros) for the fiscal year ending in February 2025. In addition, according to IDC, Cylance held only 1.3% of the global terminal security market in 2022, then dominated by CrowdStrike (17.7%) and Microsoft (16.4%).
Arctic Wolf continues its external growth strategy
Arctic Wolf thus signs its sixth acquisition in ten years. In October 2023, the American company acquired Revelstoke, a Californian start-up responsible for automating the process of collecting and analyzing security data. An operation which followed the acquisitions of the Canadian VXintel (malware intelligence platform) and the American Tetra Defense (help with data recovery and restoration).
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