Mastercard to acquire Recorded Future for $2.65B

Mastercard expanded its presence in the cybersecurity market with an agreement to buy threat intelligence vendor Recorded Future for $2.65 billion.

The financial services company on Thursday announced that it entered into an agreement with private equity firm Insight Partners to acquire Recorded Future for its threat intelligence and cybersecurity capabilities. Recorded Future, which was founded in 2009, is one of the largest threat intelligence companies in the industry and maintains its own extensive data set. The company was acquired by Insight Partners in 2019 for $780 million.

Mastercard said the acquisition will help mitigate customer risks and identify increasing threats as the financial sector is a popular target for attackers. Over the last year, Recorded Future helped Mastercard with an AI-supported service to alert the financial services company of compromised accounts. Mastercard highlighted artificial intelligence as an important factor in the acquisition and how those tools assist with identifying threats across Mastercard's massive customer base.

Last year, Recorded Future added a generative AI component to its threat intelligence platform to help users sort through an influx of data. The offering, which was built on OpenAI's GPT technology, was intended to provide insights such as recommending vulnerability patching pertinent to the user and identifying the most active threat actor groups, for example.

"Trust is the foundation of any relationship. Recorded Future adds to how we deliver that greater peace of mind before, during and after the payment transaction. Together we will innovate faster, create smarter models and anticipate emerging threats before cyberattacks can take place -- in payments and beyond," said Craig Vosburg, chief services officer at Mastercard, in the press release.

Recorded Future sent the following statement to TechTarget Editorial: "Intelligence-led security is one of the clearest trends in cyber, with CISOs using advanced threat intelligence as the foundation for a robust security strategy. With Mastercard, Recorded Future's capacity to deliver intelligence at the speed and scale of the internet will only increase, delivering even more value for CISOs and their teams."

In a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, Recorded Future CEO Christopher Ahlberg provided additional information about the acquisition agreement. "We will remain an independent & open intelligence platform, operating as an independent subsidiary of Mastercard," he wrote in a post.

Jon Oltsik, analyst emeritus at TechTarget's Enterprise Strategy Group, said the move is a somewhat surprising acquisition, although Mastercard and other credit card companies have dabbled in security acquisitions before.

"Threat intelligence analysis is an esoteric area of cybersecurity, requiring advanced skills. There aren't a lot of people to hire in this area and those available tend to work in the public sector (military/intelligence) or the largest enterprises in finance, tech, etc.," Oltsik wrote in an email. "Mastercard may be thinking about offering threat intelligence analysis as a service for its large customer base."

Oltsik also said Mastercard might tailor Recorded Future offerings toward PCI DSS, where the threat intelligence vendor acts as an information sharing and analysis center for the payment card industry. ISACs are typically nonprofit organizations that collect, analyze and communicate threat information to member organizations in various industries, including financial services, healthcare, IT and election infrastructure.

"The next version of PCI [DSS] may mandate more threat intelligence analysis. This acquisition may be in support of this," Oltsik wrote.

In a statement to TechTarget Editorial, Flashpoint CEO Josh Lefkowitz said the acquisition is a positive for the threat intelligence market.

"This acquisition is validation of the widespread, growing recognition of the mission-criticality of threat intelligence at the center of an organization's security posture. Threat intelligence has consistently increased in importance over the years, moving to the center of the radar for CISO, CSO and Board in order to protect people and assets from an escalating array of threats, from breaches and ransomware to the fallout of geopolitical conflicts around the globe," Lefkowitz said.

Mastercard's purchase of Recorded Future follows several other acquisitions in the cybersecurity space. In 2017, the financial services company bought NuData Security, a biometric analytics vendor, for an undisclosed amount. In 2023, Mastercard acquired Baffin Bay Networks, a threat detection and intelligence provider, also for an undisclosed amount.

The $2.65 billion acquisition is expected to close by the first quarter of 2025.

Arielle Waldman is a news writer for TechTarget Editorial covering enterprise security.