Mimecast, a prominent player in email and data security, has acquired Aware, a company specializing in AI-driven collaboration security. This acquisition is part of Mimecast's broader strategy to enhance its capabilities in securing collaboration tools, which have become increasingly critical as organizations rely more on digital communication platforms.
Aware's technology is designed to monitor, detect, and respond to security threats within collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Zoom. By integrating Aware's AI-driven security solutions, Mimecast aims to offer more comprehensive protection against data breaches, insider threats, and compliance risks that can arise from the use of these platforms.
Mimecast recently acquired Aware, a startup founded by a former Nationwide leader, to enhance its ability to address the growing risks associated with collaboration platforms like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. This acquisition underscores Mimecast's focus on strengthening security in digital communication and collaboration environments, which have become integral to modern workplaces.
This move reflects Mimecast's commitment to addressing the evolving security needs of businesses as they navigate the complexities of remote work and digital collaboration. With the addition of Aware's expertise, Mimecast is well-positioned to provide its customers with enhanced tools to safeguard their communication environments, ensuring that collaboration remains secure and compliant.
Aware's AI-driven technology is specifically designed to monitor, detect, and mitigate security threats within these platforms, helping organizations manage risks such as data breaches, insider threats, and compliance issues. By incorporating Aware's solutions, Mimecast aims to offer its customers more robust protection and ensure that their collaborative tools are secure and compliant with industry regulations. This strategic move highlights Mimecast's commitment to adapting to the evolving security challenges posed by the increasing reliance on digital collaboration.
As communication increasingly moves from traditional email to collaboration tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom, Mimecast has recognized the need to enhance its capabilities in monitoring and securing these platforms. According to Mimecast's CEO, Vincent van Zadelhoff, collaboration tools now account for about 50% of internal employee communications, which presents new challenges in terms of security, sentiment analysis, and compliance monitoring.
To address these challenges, Mimecast has acquired Aware, a startup known for its AI-driven and natural language processing (NLP) capabilities, which are considered top-tier in detecting sentiment and compliance issues within collaboration platforms. Van Zadelhoff highlighted that while Mimecast already had some capabilities in this area, Aware's technology significantly elevates their ability to analyze and secure communications across these platforms.
Aware's AI engines can detect the sentiment behind messages, identify potential compliance violations, and enhance security measures within collaboration environments. By integrating Aware's capabilities, Mimecast aims to not only improve its offerings for securing collaboration platforms but also to strengthen its existing products, such as email security, archiving, and business email compromise solutions. The expertise brought by Aware's NLP team is expected to drive innovation across Mimecast's entire portfolio, extending beyond Aware's core products to enhance overall communication security.
The technical integration is expected to be relatively straightforward due to the modern, API-driven architectures of both Mimecast and Aware, Schumann told ISMG. The main challenge lies in training AI models to handle the differences between formal email messages and informal, short communication patterns on collaboration tools such as Teams and Slack, according to Schumann.
"It'll take less than a month to train the models really effectively toward email, and then we'll fine-tune those with customer feedback and product leadership feedback and be able to launch something to market that's very compelling and industry-leading within a few quarters," Schumann said.
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