24hrs into Google's $32B Acquisition of Wiz - What It Means for Cloud Security

Google's $32B acquisition of Wiz reshapes cloud security landscape. Leading experts analyze implications for multi-cloud strategies, vendor lock-in concerns, and the evolution of CSPM/CNAPP to runtime security. Essential insights for CISOs and security teams navigating this industry-transforming deal.

Author

Shilpi Bhattacharjee
March 19, 2025

Hello from the Cloud-verse!

This week’s Cloud Security Newsletter Topic is Google's $32B Acquisition of Wiz - What It Means for Cloud Security? (continue reading) 

The "Wiz-Ardry of Google" Panel

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Welcome to this week's edition of the Cloud Security Newsletter!

This week, we're diving deep into what is arguably the most significant acquisition in cybersecurity history so far - Google's $32 billion purchase of Wiz. This deal has sent shockwaves through the cloud security industry, with implications for multi-cloud strategies, vendor dynamics, and the evolution of cloud security tooling.

The announced acquisition represents a shift in the cloud security landscape for both cloud security vendors and cloud service providers like AWS & Azure. With Wiz being folded into Google Cloud, many questions arise about multi-cloud security strategies, vendor lock-in concerns, and what this means for the competitive balance among cloud providers.

We've assembled insights from a panel of cloud security experts who discussed this acquisition just 24 hours after the announcement. Their perspectives offer valuable guidance for security professionals navigating this changing landscape.

Definitions and Core Concepts 📚

Before diving into the analysis, let's clarify some key terms referenced throughout the discussion:

  • CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management): Tools that assess cloud environments against security best practices and compliance frameworks, identifying misconfigurations and compliance issues. Learn more about different types of CSPMs here.

  • CNAPP (Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform): Integrated solutions that combine CSPM capabilities with workload protection, API security, identity management, and other cloud-native security functions. There are more types of C-XX for cloud, learn about them here.

  • Runtime Security: Security controls that protect cloud workloads while they're actively running, as opposed to static analysis before deployment.

  • ASPM (Application Security Posture Management): Tools that focus on discovering, assessing, and managing security risks across both applications & related infrastructure.

  • DSPM (Data Security Posture Management): Solutions that discover, classify, and protect sensitive data across cloud environments.

  • AI-SPM (AI Security Posture Management): Emerging tools focused on securing AI/ML models and data pipelines.

  • SOC (Security Operations Center): A team responsible for monitoring, detecting, analyzing, and responding to security incidents. 

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🧠 Our Insights from These Practitioners

1. The Acquisition Changes Competitive Dynamics in Cloud Security

The Google-Wiz deal represents the largest acquisition in cybersecurity history at $32 billion. This move significantly shifts the competitive landscape, particularly as Google tries to elevate its position in the cloud provider market.

"This is the biggest acquisition in the cybersecurity industry to date, as long as it all goes through and checks all the SEC checks. So that alone is staggering." - Mike Privette

The acquisition has multi-faceted implications. On one hand, it provides Google Cloud with a leading cloud security platform that could help it challenge AWS and Azure more effectively. On the other hand, it creates uncertainty for Wiz customers who rely on its multi-cloud capabilities.

"I think for AWS , we never really knew about their cloud security, but they have a lot of features, like a wide breadth in terms of just feature capabilities. But in terms of core cloud security, they never really had it. And Wiz was a really close partner with AWS." - Francis Odum

What this means for Practitioners: Continue to monitor how Google integrates Wiz into its security portfolio. If you're currently using Wiz across multiple clouds, based on your risk tolerance for vendor lock-in watch for any changes in roadmap priorities or shifts in multi-cloud support.

2. Multi-Cloud Strategy Considerations After the Acquisition

One of the most significant concerns raised by the panel was how the acquisition might affect Wiz's multi-cloud positioning, which has been a core strength of their offering.

"Wiz has always had this reputation of having multi-cloud security coverage across the three largest IaaS providers, right? How do you keep that perception, that reputation now with you being so directly tied to Google without people feeling like you're losing some of that autonomy across the IaaS providers?" - Chris Hughes

The experts emphasized that maintaining Wiz's independence will be crucial for the acquisition's success, especially for organizations using multiple cloud providers.

"If I was Google, I would let Wiz's brand sort of shine, stay, keep it very separate and just be super light touch about the transition. But if they try to come out and say like, 'Hey, Wiz's backend is now a hundred percent Google cloud. Congrats.' Like all that a CISO's mind is just going to go like, 'great. Now my data is in another cloud provider. I got to freak out about that.'" - James Berthoty

“During the investor relations call, there were indications that Wiz might be fully integrated into Google Cloud’s Security Operation Center”, - Ashish Rajan - raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest and data segregation.

"On the call, they mentioned it looks like Wiz will be like fully folded into the core GCP, which you would guess is natural, but brings about all this conflict of interest. Data segregation of data, trust issues." - Francis Odum

What this means for practitioners: As a Cloud Security professional, you should be reviewing the terms and agreements of this acquisition carefully when they become available. Special attention to data handling practices, especially if you're using Wiz to scan assets across multiple cloud providers would be particular interest for your risk concerns.

3. The Evolution Beyond CSPM and CNAPP

The panel highlighted that “Cloud security is evolving beyond traditional Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP). The focus is increasingly shifting toward runtime security and integration with Security Operations Centers (SOCs).” - Ashish Rajan

"When you actually look at those three other products that I actually mentioned, Threat-intel, Mandiant, as well as like just the core SOC product, those were fairly runtime heavy, or you could always say very closely aligned to the SOC, right? The SOC highly relies on Threat-intel to support a lot of the alerts that they're getting with the SIEMs." - Francis Odum

"The scary thing about Wiz was not the immediate product, but the potential of the code and defend products on the ASPM code side and then the runtime defend side. Those products are good enough that it was a very scary proposition for people really doing a lot of great innovation still on the code and runtime sides, both of which were not where Wiz started." - James Berthoty

With this acquisition, there's a potential for increased focus on runtime security and integration between cloud security tools and security operations workflows.

What this means for practitioners: Consider how your cloud security program integrates with your broader security operations. The trend is moving toward comprehensive security platforms that cover the entire lifecycle from code to cloud to runtime, with strong integration into SOC workflows.

4. Integration Challenges for SOC Teams

The panel discussed the challenges of integrating cloud security alerts into traditional Security Operations Center (SOC) workflows.

“Many SOC analysts lack the specialized knowledge needed to effectively respond to cloud security alerts.”- Ashish Rajan

"A lot of these teams in the SOC environments aren't, you know, historically haven't been exposed really at depth in terms of skills, knowledge, expertise of cloud environments, whether it's, you know, AWS, Azure, GCP, you name it, or more of the kind of DevOps cloud native paradigm that we're used to now with cybersecurity." - Chris Hughes

"My metric for success that I don't know if I've ever achieved is have the SOC troubleshoot a single like container alert without having to involve the DevOps team. That's like the metric of success ultimately is like, how can we make it so you don't have to go to like, oh, there's an alert on this pod. I have to call in the chief architect to figure out what it even means." - James Berthoty

What this means for practitioners: Invest in training your SOC team on cloud-specific technologies and consider which training or tools might help bridge the knowledge gap. Look for solutions that provide context-rich alerts that SOC analysts can action without deep cloud expertise.

5. Potential Impact on AWS and Microsoft Azure

The acquisition marks a significant move by Google to gain ground in the cloud security market, potentially challenging the dominance of AWS and Microsoft.

"Azure Sentinel tried doing multi-cloud earlier, didn't work because people, even though, most of the enterprises are very Windows heavy shop. Microsoft kind of has dominated that security space for a long time. And even then they were not able to make Azure Sentinel that one multi-cloud product. It's an uphill battle, especially if you're number three trying to become number two or number one as a Google Cloud." - Ashish Rajan

Francis Odum raised an important point about the relationship between Wiz and other cloud providers after the acquisition:

"I think there's going to be a lot of questions on how that would work. Just to add to Francis's comments real quick, it kind of goes again to having that autonomy and maintain that independence for Wiz to some extent. And I think this is where it may open opportunities for other cloud security players." - Chris Hughes

Mike Privette noted that this acquisition is part of a broader trend of cloud providers differentiating on security:

"All of these major players have tried to center around or create centers of excellence around security. And you can see over the past several acquisitions from Google with Chronicle many years ago to try to generate a SIEM with Mandiant, which is apparently worked out pretty well for them in terms of their response capabilities and forensics. And so this is just another vote in that kind of same direction." - Mike Privette

What this means for practitioners: Watch for responsive moves from AWS and Microsoft. They may accelerate their cloud security offerings or potentially make acquisitions of their own. This competition could benefit security teams through improved capabilities across all platforms.

6. AI Security as a Potential Driver

Francis Odum suggested that AI security might have been a significant factor in Google's decision to acquire Wiz at such a high valuation:

"And I do think increasingly, I think the bet is also with AI models being deployed on the cloud, they see a significant opportunity for both assets as well as discovery scanning as a big market that they're actually looking at. So I think this will interconnect with some parts of what they're thinking about their AI ambitions, their open source ambitions, and how they're securing cloud workloads as that market grows." - Francis Odum

With AI workloads becoming increasingly important, securing these environments represents a massive growth opportunity.

What this means for practitioners: Pay attention to the emerging field of AI Security Posture Management (AI-SPM) & Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) space. As organizations deploy more AI models in cloud environments, securing data and their AI workloads will become a critical part of cloud security programs.

7. From Finding Problems to Fixing Problems

The panel discussed how success metrics for cloud security are evolving from simply identifying issues to actually resolving them efficiently:

"I think we're seeing a shift in the industry and obviously I'm biased. I talk about vulnerability management and apps like stuff a lot is like, we're shifting from just finding problems to actually fixing problems and knowing which problems to fix and which ones matter." - Chris Hughes

James Berthoty emphasized the importance of prioritization:

"I think most people are pretty overwhelmed with their current CNAPP misconfiguration stuff and are just looking for ways to prioritize. Prioritization is the word of the day for security teams." - James Berthoty

What this means for practitioners: Look for tools that not only identify security issues but also help prioritize them based on risk and provide clear remediation guidance. The most valuable solutions will integrate with your development workflows to streamline fixes.

Question for you? (Reply to this email)

What’s your opinion on the Google acquisition of Wiz?

Next week, we'll explore another critical aspect of cloud security. Stay tuned!

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