AWS beefs up threat detection with Sqrrl acquisition

AWS has purchased Sqrrl, a Cambridge, Mass. security startup with roots in the NSA. The company helps analyze a variety of sources to track and understand security threats quickly using machine learning.

The announcement appeared on the Sqrrl home page in note from company CEO Mark Terenzoni. “We’re thrilled to share that Sqrrl has been acquired by Amazon. We will be joining the Amazon Web Services family, and we’re looking forward to working together on customer offerings for the future,” he wrote.

The question in these types of purchases is what happens to the customers. The statement suggested that at least for the time being, Sqrrl will continue to work with its existing customers.

According to a 2016 Computerworld review, the solution collects data from a variety of sources and presents threat findings in a dashboard for security analysts, who can view a visual representation of any potential vulnerabilities.

Security is surely top of mind for just about everyone these days with major breaches on the rise. Whether it was the Equifax hack at the end of last year or the Spectre and Meltdown chip vulnerabilities discovered earlier this month, security threats are clearly on the rise. This hasn’t escaped AWS, Amazon’s cloud arm, which tries to stay on top of every tech trend.

Sqrrl was co-founded in 2012 by former US government security officials with a background at the NSA and White House cyber security. The company has raised over $26 million. Its most recent round was in June, 2017 for $12.3 million led by Spring Lake Equity partners.

The announcement confirmed a December Axios report that the company was in negotiations with Amazon for a reported price of $40 million sale. We have been unable to confirm a purchase price at this time.

We requested a comment from Amazon, but had not heard from them by the time we published this article. If we hear back from them, we will update the post.

• This article originally appeared on TechCrunch.