NortonLifeLock and Avast, both operating in the cybersecurity sector have come to a deal of a merger costing between $8.1 to $8.6 billion dollars! One of the largest tech acquisitions ever seems to be for the greater good—fighting the “bad guys,” that is, cybercriminals and hackers.
Apple TLD has reached out to both firms regarding a comment. We’ll update this article if we receive a reply.
During the pandemic, there has been an exponential increase in cyberattacks, in Avast’s CEO’s own words: “The bad guys have been really, really busy taking advantage of the situation created by Covid-19… the massive increase in attacks has been against everyone — enterprises, small businesses and consumers. Now is the time to join forces and accelerate the transformation of the entire cybersecurity space.”
Other than that, this acquisition has also opened up newer markets and customers to NortonLifeLock, its CEO, Vincent Pilette said. “With this combination, we can strengthen our Cyber Safety platform and make it available to more than 500 million users.”
As Bloomberg reports, Avast’s shares had declined 6.2% this year before the talks for this deal emerged. Even though it hadn’t gained a lot of media attention back then, it did let the stock slump.
The CEO of NortonLifeLock, Vincent Pilette will remain in the same position while the CEO of Avast, Ondrej Vlcek will join in as President at NortonLifeLock.
Vlcek also said:
At a time when global cyber threats are growing, yet cyber safety penetration remains very low, together with NortonLifeLock, we will be able to accelerate our shared vision of providing holistic cyber protection for consumers around the globe.
Ondrej Vlcek, CEO at Avast
For the shareholders of Avast, NortonLifeLock + Avast has shared the infographic below.
My take: At the end of it all, it does seem like a good deal. NortonLifeLock which majorly focused on identity protection will now be able to combine its product with Avast’s advanced Anti-virus and come up with a better package, both sides would also have different ways to combat cybercriminals, which would come together and most probably lead to something better. Of course there are a lot of ways to look at it and there may be another side to this, yet to be uncovered.
