Amazon Web Services is looking to expand the security of its public cloud offering, as well as delve deeper into government work, with the acquisition of Sqrrl, a startup that has its roots in the NSA.

The deal between Amazon Web Services LLC and Sqrrl was first reported by Axios in December, but neither company commented on the report. However, Sqrrl CEO Mark Terenzoni posted a message on the company's website on January 23 announcing the deal. (See Unknown Document 739976.)

"We're thrilled to share that Sqrrl has been acquired by Amazon. We will be joining the Amazon Web Services family, and we're looking forward to working together on customer offerings for the future," Terenzoni wrote.

(Source: Scott Ferguson for Security Now)

While the two companies did not announce specific financial information about the deal, the original Axios report put the agreement at about $40 million.

Sqrrl, a five-year-old startup, has raised about $26.5 million in venture capital funding since its founding. Since 2012, the company has been developing big data analytics tools to help detect, investigate and visualize any number of security threats within a network. Specifically, Sqrrl's technology allows it to automatically detect patterns in data and then alerts the security team to allow them to assess the threat and act against it.

In addition to its current big data and security tools, Sqrrl has roots in the NSA, where several employees worked, according to Axios and other published reports.

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For AWS, the acquisition and Sqrrl's background with US national security would help as the company builds out its government contracts. Amazon already has a well-publicized deal for cloud services with the CIA.

AWS also announced a new "Secret Region" in November for specific cloud-based, security work related to various US government agencies.

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— Scott Ferguson, Editor, Enterprise Cloud News. Follow him on Twitter @sferguson_LR.