Mimecast Acquires Ataata to Fortify Cyber Resilience for Email Capabilities

By Sudipto Ghosh On Jul 10, 2018

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The Latest Acquisition Expands Mimecast to Offer Cybersecurity Awareness Capabilities with Leading Training Content, Risk Scoring, and Real-World Simulation Attack Scenarios

90 percent of organizations have seen phishing attacks increase over the last year, yet only 11 percent responded that they continuously train employees on how to spot cyberattacks. To fortify cyber resilence for email capabilities, Mimecast Limited has announced it has acquired Ataata, Inc. Ataata is a cybersecurity training and awareness platform designed to reduce human error in the workplace and help enable organizations to become more secure by changing the security culture of their employees.

Ataata’s Employee Training and Risk Scoring Will Help Customers Enhance Their Cyber Resilience Efforts

Garter had recently speculated that the security awareness computer-based training market would grow into a 1.1 billion market year-end 2020. The powerful combination of Mimecast’s cyber resilience for email capabilities paired with Ataata’s employee training and risk scoring will help customers enhance their cyber resilience efforts.

The acquisition will allow customers to measure cyber risk training effectiveness by converting behavior observations into actionable risk metrics for security professionals. The addition of security awareness training and risk scoring and analysis strengthens Mimecast’s cyber resilience for email capabilities. Currently, Mimecast is a leading email and data security company.

According to a research that Mimecast conducted with Vanson Bourne, 87% of respondents have witnessed email-based impersonation where they were asked to electronically make wire transfers. 60% of the survey-takers also fear that their business would be negatively affected by email-borne attacks in 2018!

The survey spanned organizations of all segments and sizes including major airlines, government, healthcare – or any other industry. Training is considered hard to implement as these organizations often lack resources and the right content to help raise the awareness of what to spot.

What Does New Acquisition Mean to Mimecast Customers?

The acquisition of Ataata will offer customers a single, cloud platform that is engineered to mitigate risk and reduce employee security mistakes by calculating employee security risk based on sentiment and behavior while connecting them with relevant training that is content based on their score and recommended areas for improvement. The solution is designed to allow security teams to dial up security settings at the employee level by leveraging real-world data to train employees to spot threats that are targeting them today.

At the time of this announcement, Peter Bauer, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Mimecast, said, “Cybersecurity awareness training has traditionally been viewed as a check the box action for compliance purposes, boring videos with PhDs rambling about security or even less than effective gamification which just doesn’t work. As cyber attacks continue to find new ways to bypass traditional threat detection methods, it’s essential to educate your employees in a way that changes behavior.”

Peter added, “Human error is involved in the majority of all security breaches, and these casual mistakes can cost organizations money, their reputation – and employees, potentially their job,” said Michael Madon, chief executive officer and co-founder of Ataata. “Organizations need to understand that employees are their last line of defense. Cybersecurity training and awareness doesn’t need to be difficult or boring. Training and awareness is (are) needed to help mitigate these internal risks. Our customers rely on engaging content at the human level, which helps to change behavior at the employee level. We’re excited to join forces with Mimecast to help customers build a stronger cyber resilience strategy that includes robust content, risk scoring, and real-world attack simulation — going way beyond basic security awareness capabilities.”

Currently, Mimecast makes business email and data safer for thousands of customers and their millions of employees worldwide. Founded in 2003, the company’s next-generation cloud-based security, archiving and continuity services protect email and deliver comprehensive email risk.