What Happened This July: In a surprising move, cloud security startup Wiz rejected Google’s $23 billion acquisition offer, aiming for an IPO instead. Commvault’s strong financial results highlight the growing importance of cyber-resiliency solutions. Veeam and Splunk integrated their services to improve data security and threat detection in backup environments. Pure Storage invested in Cerabyte, a company developing sustainable and secure data storage solutions. Finally, Infoblox uncovered a major Chinese cybercrime organization, demonstrating the evolving tactics of cybercriminals.
Technology Developments
What? Pure Storage invests in the ceramic-based data storage company Cerabyte. Read the press release here.
- Why? The Cerabyte technology is intended to be sustainable and immutable, offering a cyber-resilient storage solution for long-term data retention and archiving.
- What It Means: Cerabyte itself and the investment by Pure Storage reflect the need for cost-effective and sustainable storage solutions to address enterprise customers’ vastly growing volumes of data, including for the long-term retention use cases increasingly mandated by regulatory bodies and business requirements. This announcement also reflects the need for long-term, immutable, air-gapped data copies to address data security and resiliency as cyberattacks continue to grow more prominent and sophisticated.
New Products or Services
What? Veeam integrates with Splunk. Additional details are available in Veeam’s press release.
- Why? Cyber attackers are targeting backup environments. With this in mind, it is important to extend visibility of the Security Information & Event Management (SIEM) solutions that enterprises rely on to detect and analyze malicious activity, into backup environments.
- What It Means: The new extension allows Splunk to analyze Veeam events and monitor Veeam backup environments, as a result enhancing the ability to mitigate the spread of attack and to speed recovery.
Market Developments
What: Wiz, a cloud security startup, rejected Google’s $23 billion acquisition offer. Despite the lucrative deal, Wiz opted to pursue an IPO instead, aiming for a $1 billion annual recurring revenue before going public.
- Why? Wiz believes it can achieve greater value as a public company and retain control over its strategic direction.
- What It Means: The size of Google’s acquisition offer reflects the growing importance of security as a differentiator for cloud hyperscalers. Wiz’s rejection of the offer signals high confidence in its independent growth potential, as it prioritizes an IPO for greater control and valuation. This decision underscores the competitive landscape in cloud security and Wiz’s steady march toward solidifying itself as a major player. The move could also influence other startups to pursue IPOs rather than quick exits through acquisitions.
What: Commvault announced impressive financial results for its fiscal first quarter ended June 30, 2024, driven by strong subscription revenue growth and strategic investments in cyber resiliency. Additional details are available on Commvault’s Investor Relations site.
- Why? Commvault’s strong Q1 2025 results highlight its successful transition to a subscription-led business model and SaaS delivery as well as its emphasis on cyber-resiliency – all of which drove healthy revenue and ARR growth.
- What It Means: As emphasized by Commvault CEO Sanjay Mirchandani, the ability to reduce risk, enhance readiness, and facilitate fast recovery will only pay more dividends following the historic IT outages that occurred in July 2024 from a misconfigured CrowdStrike update. The incident served as a stark reminder of the variety of potential disasters that organizations need to be prepared to recover from, beyond cyber-attacks. The Futurum Group expects a resurgence in demand for capabilities such as air gapping and recovery testing. Commvault’s performance also reflects the need to balance traditional on-premises solutions with innovative SaaS offerings to address diverse customer needs.
Other Developments
What: Infoblox claims to have uncovered a Chinese cybercrime organization called “Vigorish Viper.” The group is accused of facilitating a $1.7 trillion illegal global sports gambling market through technology solutions, including using sponsorships with European football clubs to advertise illegal gambling sites in Southeast Asia, and having links to human-trafficking operations in Southeast Asia. More information is available from Infoblox here.
- Why? Vigorish Viper had been avoiding detection by operating an expansive network of more than 170,000 active domain names, a sophisticated DNS CNAME (Canonical Name records) traffic distribution system, encrypted communications, and proprietary applications.
- What It Means: Infoblox’s detection of Vigorish Viper activity reflects the importance of marrying expertise in specific areas such as DNS activity, with increasingly advanced threat hunting, detection of IoCs, and analysis of user behavior. This comprehensive approach is required to uncover the complex threats that continue to emerge.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other Insights from The Futurum Group:
Infoblox Uncovers Web of Chinese Cybercrime
Pure Storage Invests in Ceramic Data Storage Company, Cerabyte
Subscription Revenue Drives Commvault’s Exceptional Q1 2025 Results
Krista Gets Married and Outages, Outages and more Outages – Infrastructure Matters, Episode 49
Author Information
With a focus on data security, protection, and management, Krista has a particular focus on how these strategies play out in multi-cloud environments. She brings approximately 15 years of experience providing research and advisory services and creating thought leadership content. Her vantage point spans technology and vendor portfolio developments; customer buying behavior trends; and vendor ecosystems, go-to-market positioning, and business models. Her work has appeared in major publications including eWeek, TechTarget and The Register.
Prior to joining The Futurum Group, Krista led the data protection practice for Evaluator Group and the data center practice of analyst firm Technology Business Research. She also created articles, product analyses, and blogs on all things storage and data protection and management for analyst firm Storage Switzerland and led market intelligence initiatives for media company TechTarget.
