Barracuda acquires PhishLine to better fight email-borne cyberthreats

Barracuda Networks, a provider of cloud-enabled security solutions, has acquired social engineering simulation and training vendor PhishLine, giving the company additional capabilities to fight email-based phishing and improve customers' network security.

Financial details of the deal were not revealed.

Each company brings something to the table to help enterprises fight phishing issues.

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Combining Barracuda's AI-driven protection against phishing and spear phishing with PhishLine's training and simulation platform gives customers comprehensive defense against email-borne targeted attacks and social engineering.

As the primary communications mode for many businesses, email not surprisingly has become the most targeted threat vector, requiring a two-layer approach to prevent breaches: security technology and a human layer of defense. PhishLine's data analytics and reporting will allow customers to measure and report on risks across both of these layers.

Barracuda combines gateway security, data protection, AI-based targeted threat protection and user awareness training to deliver protection against email-borne threats.

"Security awareness training is an important and quickly evolving area, particularly with increasingly targeted attacks making the human element a critical link in the security value chain," said BJ Jenkins, president and CEO of Barracuda, in a release.

Security experts say email phishing attacks are a growing concern.  

According to a Symantec study, email poses a dangerous and efficient threat to users: 1 in 131 emails contain malware. Further, Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams, relying on spear-phishing emails, target over 400 businesses every day, draining $3 billion over the last three years.