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In a significant move to bolster its cybersecurity framework, Mastercard has announced its intention to acquire Recorded Future from Insight Partners for $2.65 billion. This deal, which is expected to finalize in the first quarter of 2025, would represent the second-largest acquisition in the company’s history, following its 58-year journey in the financial services sector.
This acquisition mirrors Mastercard’s ongoing commitment to enhancing its cybersecurity strategies, having previously invested around $3 billion in nine cybersecurity firms since the establishment of its cybersecurity business unit in 2017, as noted by Strategy of Security analyst Cole Grolmus on LinkedIn.
Recorded Future, a recognized leader in threat intelligence, serves approximately 1,900 clients globally, including multiple government agencies and half of the companies listed in the Fortune 100. Furthermore, a Frost & Sullivan report highlights that Recorded Future Intelligence Cloud is home to one of the most extensive threat intelligence databases available today. The platform’s capabilities encompass governance, risk management, as well as third-party risk management, greatly enhancing clients’ ability to assess their exposure to threats, according to a Forrester Research report from May 2024.
Brian Wrozek, a principal research analyst at Forrester, anticipates that integrating Recorded Future’s competencies with Mastercard’s vast experience and partnerships will significantly increase the security of digital payment transactions. “Mastercard will gain greater oversight of essential cybersecurity resources such as threat intelligence,” he states.
Recently, Recorded Future has also integrated OpenAI’s GPT model into its platform to enhance real-time analytics. This incorporation utilizes a decade’s worth of threat analysis from its Insikt Group, which is coupled with the Recorded Future Intelligence Graph for a comprehensive view of emerging threats.
Expanding Threat Intelligence Capabilities
Mastercard has been strategically investing in threat and risk intelligence for over ten years. The launch of SafetyNet in 2014 has proven to be instrumental, as this tool successfully identified risks and mitigated $20 billion in fraudulent activities on its network in 2023, according to Johan Gerber, Mastercard’s Executive Vice President of Security Solutions.
Gerber also elaborates on the role of AI in these efforts, stating, “Our AI-enabled Decision Intelligence solution assigns scores to banks for identifying and halting fraudulent transactions.”
Last year, Mastercard enhanced its risk management capabilities by acquiring Baffin Bay Networks, known for its threat protection services. This alliance has enabled Mastercard to counteract various cyber threats, especially ransomware and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, more effectively.
Mastercard isn’t the only player invested in cybersecurity. Visa has allocated over $9 billion over recent years to enhance its cybersecurity tools and services, particularly focusing on fraud prevention and account security. The Visa Account Attack Intelligence (VAAI) incorporates generative AI to detect potentially harmful transactions during online payments.
Building on Mastercard’s AI Capabilities
Gerber believes that the acquisition of Recorded Future will significantly enhance Mastercard’s existing AI-enabled Decision Intelligence capabilities by introducing sophisticated threat analysis tools.
“The expertise Recorded Future possesses in AI-driven threat analysis will provide our customers with timely insights essential for safeguarding their operations and infrastructures,” he notes. This capability will not only empower Mastercard’s ability to measure risk more accurately but also help simulate potential attacks based on real-time trend analysis.
Additionally, Gerber envisions integrating Recorded Future’s innovations with RiskRecon, a company that Mastercard acquired in 2020, to enhance third-party security monitoring. Recorded Future’s offerings are expected to bolster two additional services launched by Mastercard in 2022: Cyber Front and Cyber Quant, enhancing their threat simulation and risk prioritization features.
“The synergy will allow for improved risk quantification,” Gerber affirms. “Our customers will gain immediate benefits from the timely threat insights introduced by Recorded Future.”
Recorded Future’s contributions are set to enrich the security and intelligence across all of Mastercard’s products. According to Gerber, this advancement will aid in developing more proficient models that can anticipate future cyber threats, extending beyond just payment systems.
Forrester’s Wrozek emphasizes that the acquisition solidifies Mastercard’s capacity for direct control over vital threat intelligence, underscoring its importance in today’s cybersecurity landscape. He articulates that this aligns with Mastercard’s commitment to protecting the global digital economy.
A 2024 Forrester survey indicates that enhancing threat intelligence is a critical priority for many organizations. Most companies tend to invest in multiple threat intelligence feeds to support decision-making, facilitate rapid incident response, and transition towards a more proactive security approach.
“To improve their security postures, organizations require increased threat intelligence,” Wrozek concludes.
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