Bitdefender Buys Mesh to Boost Email Security and MDR Reach

Bitdefender plans to purchase an Irish startup to enhance the GravityZone XDR and MDR platforms by natively integrating email security.

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The Bucharest, Romania-based endpoint security firm said Dublin, Ireland-based Mesh Security’s dual-layer approach using both secure email gateway and cloud-native, API-enabled email security will help enhance threat visibility and detection pre- and post-delivery, said Bitdefender Business Solutions Group GM and President Andrei Florescu. Mesh’s MSP-centric design fits into Bitdefender’s mid-market focus, he said.

“We went out and looked at the market for a technology that Bitdefender wants to own and can further develop as part of the GravityZone XDR platform incorporated into our MDR service,” Florescu said. “We came across Mesh, and were thoroughly impressed with the high quality of their technology platform and were quite impressed with their laser focus on business email compromise in the MSP market.”

Mesh Security, founded in 2020, employs 20 people and closed a $1.73 million seed funding round in June 2023 led by Elkstone. The company has been led since its inception by Brian Byrne, who previously spent four years leading sales at The Email Laundry. This is Bitdefender’s first acquisition since August 2023, when it bought Singapore-based CIEM, CSPM and consulting provider Horangi Cyber Security (see: Bitdefender CEO Florin Talpes on Bringing XDR to the Masses).

Why SEG, CAPES Offer Better Email Protection Together

Mesh stood out because of its strong technology and focus on business email compromise – a significant and growing cyberthreat – particularly in the MSP market, which is also a strategic segment for Bitdefender. The acquisition will help Bitdefender incorporate native email protection as part of its broader defense suite, which he said will boost overall visibility and response capabilities across customer environments.

“We care a lot about the MSP market, and that added quite a little bit of weight into our decision-making process,” Florescu told Information Security Media Group.

Joining SEG and CAPES provides proactive protection before emails reach user inboxes and retrospective detection and action after delivery, Florescu said. This dual approach supports event correlation across endpoints and other attack surfaces monitored by Bitdefender’s XDR. Plus the deal ensures that threats delivered via email are detected, analyzed, and responded to in tandem with other attack surfaces.

“This dual layer approach ensures both pre-delivery and post-threat delivery detection and action taken,” Florescu said. “Together with that, we gain very good access to events, raw data, and an ability to correlate those events across the entire attack surface that the XDR platform is monitoring. And by association, that the MDR service is leaning on.”

Full ingestion of Mesh’s telemetry into the GravityZone XDR platform will enable native detection and response across email traffic, Florescu said. This process includes normalizing and enriching data to fit Bitdefender’s existing detection logic. By owning the Mesh platform, Bitdefender will gain the flexibility to tailor and enhance data processing, streamline queries and improve threat detection efficacy.

“We are looking at capturing the platform telemetry from email security, bringing it into GravityZone XDR, making it a native capability of the XDR platform, part of our extended incidents when we look at reporting suspicious activity across the enterprise by association,” Florescu said. “When that happens, our MDR service is going to have full visibility and response capabilities across the entire estate.”

What Makes Bitdefender, Mesh a Good Fit for MSPs

While Bitdefender maintains an open API ecosystem for integrations, Florescu said email demands native capabilities for maximum security outcomes. Owning the technology stack helps Bitdefender create tight feedback loops between detection mechanisms and response processes. This internal control boosts Bitdefender’s ability to adapt to emerging threats and make data-driven enhancements.

“There are certain portions of the technology stack you prefer to own to essentially synergize feedback loops between technology and services, and this is boosting our ability to quickly react to the threat landscape,” Florescu said. “It will allow us to very quickly tie a feedback loop between service and product and implement changes that are going to provide better outcome that are under our control.”

Mesh’s native support for co-managed environments means both service providers and end customers can access the same email security data, apply policies and respond to incidents in a shared console, Florescu said. He said this design accelerates remediation workflows, reduces complexity, simplifies day-to-day operations, and encourages tighter collaboration between MSPs and their clients.

“It means both the MSP/MSSP and the customer can look at the same reality, can access the same high-fidelity email telemetry,” Florescu said. “They’re looking at the same set of shared policies, and they’re able to coordinate response actions from the same console. And this is really accelerating a lot of the workflows that you would expect to occur between the MSP, the MSSP and the end customer.”

Both Bitdefender and Mesh serve organizations in the 500 to 5,000 employee range, and both have deep ties with MSPs, Florescu said. Geographically, their markets are centered in North America and Europe, with Bitdefender planning to help Mesh expand into Asia-Pacific. Vertically, he said both companies serve sectors that frequently rely on MSPs such as manufacturing, finance, education and technology.

“Customer satisfaction is of paramount importance,” Florescu said. “We aim and strive to keep both the existing set of partners, MSSP and value-added resellers of Mesh happy with the investment that they’ve made prior to the acquisition in Mesh. We’re not looking to alter their path in any regard.”