FireEye, Inc.
Company typePublic
NasdaqFEYE
Russell 1000 Component
IndustryComputer security
Founded2004
FounderAshar Aziz
HeadquartersMilpitas, California, United States
Key people
Kevin Mandia, CEO
ProductsNetwork security hardware and software
ServicesIT security consulting services
Revenue
  • Increase US $779.6 million
(2017)
  • Increase US $303 million
(2017)
Total assetsUS $2.33 billion (2017)
OwnerPrivate owners include Ashar Aziz, David DeWalt, DAG Ventures, JAFCO Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank
Number of employees
~3,000 (2017)[1]
Websitewww.fireeye.com

FireEye is a public cybersecurity company headquartered in Milpitas, California.[2] It provides hardware, software, and services to investigate cybersecurity attacks, protect against malicious software, and analyze IT security risks.[3]

FireEye was founded in 2004. Initially, it focused on developing virtual machines that would download and test internet traffic before transferring it to a corporate or government network. The company diversified over time, in part through acquisitions. In 2014, it acquired Mandiant, which provides emergency services after a security breach. FireEye went public in 2015.

Corporate history edit

FireEye was founded in 2004 by Ashar Aziz, a former Sun Microsystems engineer.[3][4] It received an early investment from the CIA's investment arm, In-Q-Tel, in 2009.[5] FireEye's first commercial product was not developed and sold until 2010.[6] That same year, FireEye expanded into the Middle-East.[7] This was followed by the opening of new offices in Asia Pacific in 2010,[8] Europe in 2011[9] and Africa in 2013.[10]

In December 2012, founder Aziz stepped down as CEO and former McAfee CEO David DeWalt was appointed to the position.[2][11][12] DeWalt was recruited in order to prepare the company for an initial public offering (IPO).[6][13] The following year, FireEye raised an additional $50 million in venture capital, bringing its total funding to $85 million.[14][15] In late 2013, FireEye went public, raising $300 million.[11]

At the time, FireEye was growing rapidly.[11] It had 175 employees in 2011, which grew to 900 by June 2012.[11] Revenues multiplied eight-fold between 2010 and 2012.[11] However, FireEye was not yet profitable, due to high operating costs, such as research and development expenses.[11]

In January 2014, FireEye acquired Mandiant for $1 billion.[16] Mandiant was a private company founded in 2004 by Kevin Mandia that provided emergency response services in the event of a data security breach.[16][17] Mandiant was known for investigating high-profile hacking groups.[16] Before the acquisition, FireEye would often identify a security breach, then partner with Mandiant to investigate who the hackers were.[16] Mandiant became a subsidiary of FireEye.[16]

In late 2014, FireEye initiated a secondary offering, selling another $1.1 billion in shares, in order to fund development of a wider range of products.[18] Shortly afterward, FireEye acquired another data breach investigation company, nPulse, for approximately $60 million.[19] By 2015, FireEye was making more than $100 million in annual revenue, but was still unprofitable,[20] largely due to research and development spending.[4]

In January 2016, FireEye acquired iSIGHT Partners for $200 million.[21] iSIGHT was a threat intelligence company[22] that gathered information about hacker groups and other cybersecurity risks.[23] This was followed by the acquisition of Invotas, an IT security automation company.[24][25] DeWalt stepped down as CEO in 2016 and was replaced by Mandiant CEO and former FireEye President Kevin Mandia.[2][4] Afterwards, there was a downsizing and restructuring in response to lower-than-expected sales, resulting in a layoff of 300-400 employees.[26][27] Afterwards, profit and revenue increased on account of shifts to a subscription model and lower costs.[28]

Acquisitions edit

Announcement date Company Business Deal size References
December 30, 2013 Mandiant Information security $1 billion [29]
May 8, 2014 nPulse Technologies Information security $60 million [30]
January 2016 iSight Partners Cyber Threat Intelligence $275 Million [31]
February 2016 Invotas Security Orchestration [32]
October 2017 The Email Laundry Email Security [33]
January 2018 X15 Software Machine and Log Data Management $15 million in equity and $5 million in cash [34]

Products and services edit

FireEye started out as a "sandboxing" company.[35] Sandboxing is where incoming network traffic is opened within a virtual machine to test it for malicious software, before being introduced into the network.[16][20] FireEye's products diversified over time, in part through acquisitions.[2][35] In 2017, FireEye transitioned from primarily selling appliances, to a software-as-a-service model.[36]

FireEye sells technology products including network, email and endpoint security, a platform for managing security operations centers called Helix, consulting services primarily based on incident response, and threat intelligence products.[37][38]

Operations edit

FireEye is known for uncovering high-profile hacking groups.[2] For example, in 2013 Mandiant (before being acquired by FireEye) uncovered a multi-year espionage effort by a Chinese hacking group called APT1.[39] In 2014, FireEye discovered a group it called FIN4, which used phishing strategies to get insider trading information.[40] That same year, the company created software that helped victims of ransomware Cryptolocker unlock their files without paying the ransom.[41] In 2015, FireEye uncovered malicious software Russian hackers embedded in images shared on Twitter to get information from government computers.[42] In 2016, FireEye uncovered IronGate, a malware program that targeted industrial systems.[43] In 2018, FireEye helped Facebook identify 652 fake accounts.[44]

References edit

  1. ^ FireEye 2017 Annual Report, FireEye
  2. ^ a b c d e Hackett, Robert (May 6, 2016). "FireEye Names New CEO". Fortune. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  3. ^ a b Springer, P.J. (2017). Encyclopedia of Cyber Warfare. ABC-CLIO. p. 109. ISBN 978-1-4408-4425-6. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  4. ^ a b c Anderson, Mae (August 24, 2018). "FireEye is tech firms' weapon against disinformation, staffed with 'the Navy SEALs of cyber security'". latimes.com. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  5. ^ Takahashi, Dean (November 18, 2009). "CIA's In-Q-Tel funds FireEye anti-botnet security firm". VentureBeat. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  6. ^ a b "FireEye shares double as hot security firm goes public". USA TODAY. September 20, 2013. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  7. ^ Enzer, Georgina. "FireEye Inc steps into the Middle East". ITP.net. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  8. ^ "Security Watch: FireEye appoints first ever Asia Pac president". CSO. November 15, 2018. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  9. ^ Brewster, Tom (March 17, 2011). "FireEye looks to break into UK". IT PRO. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  10. ^ Doyle, Kirsten (August 7, 2013). "FireEye opens local office". ITWeb. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  11. ^ a b c d e f Owens, Jeremy C.; Delevett, Peter (September 20, 2013). "FireEye's price more than doubles on Wall Street after eye-popping IPO". The Mercury News. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  12. ^ "FireEye names former McAfee exec Dave DeWalt as CEO, plans IPO". Reuters. November 28, 2012. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  13. ^ Kelly, Meghan (August 5, 2013). "FireEye brings more legitimacy to new security solutions with IPO filing". VentureBeat. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  14. ^ Westervelt, Robert (January 10, 2013). "FireEye Scores $50M Funding, Beefs Up Executive Team". CRN. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  15. ^ Bort, Julie (January 10, 2013). "Now Worth $1.25 Billion, FireEye Is The Next Hot Enterprise Startup To Watch". Business Insider. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  16. ^ a b c d e f Perlroth, Nicole; Sanger, David (January 3, 2014). "FireEye Computer Security Firm Acquires Mandiant". The New York Times. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  17. ^ Reuters (January 2, 2014). "FireEye Buys Mandiant For $1 Billion In Huge Cyber Security Merger". Business Insider. Retrieved September 22, 2018. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  18. ^ Merced, Michael J. de la (March 10, 2014). "With Its Stock Riding High, FireEye Sells More Shares for $1.1 Billion". DealBook. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  19. ^ Miller, Ron (May 6, 2014). "FireEye Buys nPulse Technologies For $60M+ To Beef Up Network Security Suite". TechCrunch. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  20. ^ a b Weise, Elizabeth (May 20, 2015). "FireEye has become go-to company for breaches". USA TODAY. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  21. ^ Finkle, Jim (January 20, 2016). "FireEye buys cyber intelligence firm iSight Partners for $200 million". U.S. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  22. ^ Hackett, Robert (January 20, 2016). "FireEye Makes a Big Acquisition". Fortune. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  23. ^ Kuchler, Hannah (January 20, 2016). "FireEye bulks up for 'cyber arms race'". Financial Times. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  24. ^ Morgan, Steve (February 2, 2016). "FireEye acquires Invotas; Who's next?". CSO Online. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  25. ^ Beckerman, Josh (February 2, 2016). "FireEye Buys Invotas International". WSJ. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  26. ^ Wieczner, Jen (August 5, 2016). "What FireEye's Stock Crash Says About Hacking". Fortune. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  27. ^ Owens, Jeremy C. (August 4, 2016). "FireEye plans layoffs as new CEO takes the helm, stock plunges". MarketWatch. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  28. ^ Sharma, Vibhuti (October 30, 2018). "FireEye earnings boosted by lower costs, higher subscriptions". Reuters. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  29. ^ Perlroth, Nicole; Sanger, David E. (2014-01-02). "FireEye Computer Security Firm Acquires Mandiant". The New York Times.
  30. ^ Miller, Ron (May 8, 2014). "FireEye Buys nPulse Technologies For $60M+ To Beef Up Network Security Suite". TechCrunch.
  31. ^ http://investors.fireeye.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=951017
  32. ^ http://investors.fireeye.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=952747
  33. ^ "The Future is Bright for FireEye Email Security « The Future is Bright for FireEye Email Security". FireEye. Retrieved 2018-07-12.
  34. ^ https://www.fireeye.com/company/press-releases/2017/FireEye_Announces_Acquisition_of_X15_Software.html
  35. ^ a b Oltsik, Jon (October 15, 2015). "FireEye Myth and Reality". CSO Online. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  36. ^ "Cybersecurity Firm FireEye's Revenue Beats Street". Fortune. July 1, 2017. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  37. ^ Casaretto, John (February 14, 2014). "FireEye launches a new platform and details Mandiant integration". SiliconANGLE. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  38. ^ Kuranda, Sarah (November 30, 2016). "FireEye Brings Together Security Portfolio Under New Helix Platform". CRN. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  39. ^ Sanger, David E.; Barboza, David; Perlroth, Nicole (February 18, 2013). "China's Army Is Seen as Tied to Hacking Against U.S." The New York Times. Retrieved October 15, 2018.
  40. ^ Sullivan, Gail (December 2, 2014). "Report: 'FIN4' hackers are gaming markets by stealing insider info". Washington Post. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  41. ^ Osborne, Charlie (September 5, 2014). "FireEye, Fox-IT launch free service to combat Cryptolocker ransomware". ZDNet. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  42. ^ Menn, Joseph (July 29, 2015). "Russians hackers used Twitter, photos to reach U.S. computers: report". U.S. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  43. ^ Hackett, Robert (June 3, 2016). "FireEye Caught Sneaky Malware Targeting Siemens' Industrial Systems". Fortune. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  44. ^ Conger, Kate; Frenkel, Sheera (August 23, 2018). "How FireEye Helped Facebook Spot a Disinformation Campaign". The New York Times. Retrieved September 22, 2018.

External links edit