Microsoft buys an equity stake in California-based startup Rubrik to defend users from ransomware

Sep, 2021 - By WMR

The partnership will involve co-engineering initiatives targeted at combating ransomware and promoting zero-trust data protection solutions built on Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft is investing in Rubrik Inc., a software startup, and the two companies will collaborate on technologies that would assist ransomware victims to retrieve their essential data without having to pay hackers. The two companies will work together to provide ransomware prevention, detection, and recovery software based on Microsoft's Azure cloud. Furthermore, the products ensure that backup copies of customer data and cloud software have not been tampered with by hackers. However, the investment amount was not revealed by any of the companies.

Rubrik is a cloud data management company based in California, U.S. The company focuses on businesses that offers data management and use hybrid cloud environments services such as backup and recovery. Its software can be used to manage and secure data both on the cloud and in-premises. After its last funding round of US$ 553 million, the startup is valued at US$ 3.3 billion.

This partnership will address the growing demand for customers’ data to be protected against the attack of ransomware cyberattacks, which are increasing at a rate of 150% each year. Microsoft and Rubrik will work together to offer hybrid cloud data security and integrated cloud services on Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365. The partners and customers will benefit from additional data protection as a result of this partnership, ensuring that important Microsoft 365 data is protected, easily discoverable, and always available in the situation of a ransomware attack, malicious attack, accidental damage, or deletion. Rubrik also provides extra security and support for Microsoft 365, such as quick search and restore and scalable policy administration.

The partnership currently supports over 2,000 mutual customers worldwide and hundreds of petabytes of data under Azure management across 6 continents. Both the companies have witnessed substantial client growth and acceptance among industries such as healthcare, technology, legal, financial, manufacturing, retail, technology, gaming, and government.