Cloudflare Unifies Email Security and Zero Trust with Acquisition of Area 1 Security

Cloudflare is acquiring Area 1 Security and its email security solution. With it, Cloudflare is taking the next step in its vision to deliver an integrated, one-click approach to Zero Trust to securing an enterprise’s full suite of apps.

by Brenda Fox

Tags: Area 1, cloud-native, Cloudflare, email, security, SIEM, Zero Trust,

Cloudflare is acquiring Area 1 Security to boost email security for its Cloudflare Zero Trust network. Area 1 Security's cloud-native platform works seamlessly with any email offering and stops phishing attacks by preemptively discovering and eliminating them.

The two businesses will create a complete Zero Trust solution that clients may enable through Cloudflare's global edge by combining Area 1 Security's highly scalable technology and years of experience in email protection with Cloudflare's worldwide network.

"Email is the largest cyberattack vector on the Internet, which makes integrated email security critical to any true Zero Trust network. That's why today we're welcoming Area 1 Security to help make Cloudflare's platform the clear leader in Zero Trust," said Matthew Prince, co-founder, and CEO of Cloudflare.

"To us, the future of Zero Trust includes an integrated, one-click approach to securing all of an organization's applications, including its most ubiquitous cloud application, email. Together, we expect we'll be delivering the fastest, most effective, and most reliable email security on the market." Price added.

Area 1 Security's CEO Patrick Sweeney noted that "a Clean Internet starts with a Clean Inbox!”

He added “ You can't have one without the other, especially since estimates show that upwards of 90% of all cybersecurity breaches start with an email attack… Cloudflare delivers one of the world's leading Zero Trust networks. By joining forces, we are creating an integrated, one-click approach to securing all of an organization's applications, including email."

Filling Security Gaps and Fortifying Existing Defenses

In 2021, Cloudflare launched its Advanced Email Security Suite, which includes capabilities for creating bespoke email names, managing incoming email routing, as well as preventing email spoofing and phishing on outgoing emails.

Area 1 Security provides a proactive approach to email security to halt phishing attempts in their infancy. In specific, it integrates and complements a variety of security stacks, including:

Secure email gateways
Secure web gateways
Firewalls
SIEM (Security Information and Event Management)

The solution seamlessly integrates with existing defenses to fill a 'security gap' and safeguard against low-volume targeted phishing attacks, Sweeney noted. He shared more detail in a recent blog post.

Cloudflare's mission is to help build a better Internet, and the company has invested heavily in building the world's most powerful cloud network to deliver users a faster, safer and more reliable Internet.

Area 1's mission is to stop Phishing attacks and deliver a Clean Inbox. We describe that mission as Inbox.Clean™. To make good on that promise, Area 1 has invested heavily in the world's most powerful preemptive cloud-native email security service.

Clearly, Cloudflare and Area 1 together add strength to both missions. Because let's be real here – a Clean Internet starts with a Clean Inbox! You can't have one without the other, especially since estimates show that upwards of 90% of all cybersecurity breaches start with an email attack.

So how do our two companies mesh at the solution level? Cloudflare delivers one of the world's leading Zero Trust networks. By joining forces we are creating an integrated, one-click approach to securing all of an organization's applications, including email.

Cloudflare CTO John Graham-Cumming added, "Together with the Area 1 team, we will continue to help build the world's most robust cloud network and Zero Trust security platform.

Graham-Cumming also wrote a blog post, detailed the importance of combining email security with Zero Trust.

Offering a cloud-based email security product makes sense on its own, but our vision for joining Area 1's technology to Cloudflare is much larger. We are convinced that adding email security to our existing Zero Trust security platform will result in the best protection for our customers.

As we've discussed, email is a major vector for attacks, but it is not the only one. Email security is just one layer of an enterprise defense system. Most businesses have multiple layers of security to protect their employees and their assets.

These defense layers reduce the risk that a system gets penetrated by an attacker. Now imagine all these layers were purpose-built to work with each other seamlessly, built into the same software stack, offered by a single vendor and available to you in 250+ locations around the world.

Imagine a world where you can turn on email security to protect you against phishing, but if for some reason an attacker were to get through to an employee's inbox, you can create a rule to open any unrecognized link in an isolated remote browser with no text input allowed and scan all email attachments for known malware.

That is the power of what we hope to achieve by adding Area 1's technology onto Cloudflare's Zero Trust security platform. Bringing email and Zero Trust together opens up a world of possibilities in protecting email and the enterprise.

Incorporating Area 1 into our Zero Trust platform will deliver significant value to our customers, but protecting email is just the start. Area 1 has spent years training their machine learning models with email data to deliver world-class security.

Joining email threat data and Cloudflare's threat data from our global network will give us incredible power to deliver improved security capabilities for our customers across our products.

The Cloudflare acquisition of Area 1 Security s expected to close early in the second quarter of 2022 and is subject to customary closing conditions.

Under the terms of the agreement,, Cloudflare will acquire Area 1 Security for approximately $162 million, subject to customary adjustments, the companies said.

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