PayPal boosting cyber security with buyout of Israeli CyActive
ONLINE payments company Paypal is set to expand its cyber security business with the acquisition of the Israeli tech firm CyActive, it emerged yesterday.
The $60m (£40m) buyout of CyActive will be Paypal’s second acquisition of an Israel-based company, after it purchased FraudSciences in 2008 for $169m.
CyActive was founded in 2013 and provides companies with forecasts about future cyber attacks, based on analysis of past attacks, alongside detection and prevention services.
CyActive was the recipient of a strategic investment from a venture capital arm of Siemens last September, as well as from Jerusalem Venture Partners. Financial details were not disclosed.
Israel’s Globes financial newspaper said it expected the deal to conclude shortly.
Paypal was founded in 1998 and became a wholly-owned subsidiary of online auctioning site Ebay after its initial public offering in 2002.
Last year the company recorded revenues of nearly $8bn.
Ebay surprised the tech community last September by announcing plans to spin off Paypal at some point this year following pressure from activist investor Carl Icahn.
The rationale was to allow PayPal to capture further market share and strike more deals with companies which had previously been reluctant to use the platform due to its association with Ebay.
Last December Paypal awarded Egyptian student and former so-called “hacktivist” Yasser Ali $10,000 after he reported a flaw in its security which allowed him to take complete control of user accounts by changing their passwords.