Mastercard splurges $2.65B on another big cyber purchase – Recorded Future

Mastercard has added another security asset to its growing portfolio, laying down $2.65 billion for threat intelligence giant Recorded Future.

It's a blue chip buy for Mastercard. The payment goliath claims security analysis platform Recorded Future is used by government agencies in 45 countries and over 50 percent of the Fortune 100. The startup was initially funded by In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital arm, and is increasingly blending AI into its product offering, according to Recorded Future's CEO Christopher Ahlberg.

"We’ve built Recorded Future to be by far the largest independent intelligence business in the world, used by top intelligence agencies, cyber defense agencies, militaries, as well as thousands of companies ranging from the very largest to the very small," he said.

"We will continue on this mission. Same company, new owner, massive scale. Recorded Future will continue to generate intelligence at global scale, using the most advanced AI methods to turn it into gold, allowing our analysts and customers to produce the most exquisite analysis."

The two companies are already working together on using AI to identify fraudulent credit card use. Mastercard claims this has doubled the effectiveness of its systems for spotting fraud in the last year and now the duo will be able to share data points freely, although Ahlberg insisted his business would remain as "an independent & open intelligence platform."

“Our identity, fraud prevention and cybersecurity services combined with Recorded Future’s ability to gather high-value threat intelligence data will strengthen our efforts to protect trust in the digital economy as well as enhance the products and services we provide to customers globally – in the payments ecosystem and beyond," Johan Gerber, Mastercard's EVP of security and cyber innovation, told The Register.

Mastercard has now spent over $3 billion over the last three years buying in security talent. While Recorded Future might be its biggest recent purchase, the payment processor spent $850 million in 2021 for identity management business Ekata, and the same year purchased crypto-fraud spotting biz CipherTrace for an undisclosed sum. The Financial service giant has since used that technology in its Crypto Secure service, which checks cryptocurrency and the exchanges that trade it for security and fraud.

The deal is expected to be finalized by the first quarter of 2025, subject to regulatory approval. ®