Aon Risk Solutions, the risk management arm of Aon Plc (NYSE: AON), is purchasing cybersecurity management firm Stroz Friedberg Inc. for an undisclosed amount. The deal comes amid daily reports of cyber breaches from politicians, such as Hillary Clinton and Colin Powell, and companies, including the unprecedented breach of 500 million Yahoo user accounts.

Strozz, a New York City-based risk management firm, offers intellectual property protection and provides proactive and reactive services for cyberattacks. As part of the deal, Stroz’s cybersecurity governance and advisory services will be integrated into Aon’s newly formed cyber solutions group, that will be led by Stroz CEO Michael Patsalos-Fox. Those services include: penetration testing, incident response, digital forensics, eDiscovery, and due diligence capabilities.

"Both Stroz Friedberg and Aon know that businesses face greater systemic risk from cyber threats than ever before, and both understand that companies need an integrated approach to mitigate this risk and achieve resilience," says Patsalos-Fox. The purchase of Stroz’s complementary services “greatly expands Aon's cyber solutions and differentiates us from our competition while accelerating innovation on behalf of our clients."

Headquartered in London, Aon is a global insurance provider that also offers risk management services and insurance brokerage in more than 120 countries. Aon chief information officer John Bruno will join Patsalos-Fox as co-chair of the newly combined division. The deal for Stroz directly follows the release of Aon’s cyber enterprise solution, a property insurance product that covers cyber risks for up to $400 million in capacity. The cyberattack insurance policy covers property damage from network security breach, cyber terrorism, product liability from internet exposures, network business interruption and other internet-related threats.

As cybersecurity firms have drawn increased interest from buyers, some related deals include: Accenture Plc’s (NYSE: CAN) purchase of cybersecurity company Maglan; Symantec Corp.’s (Nasdaq: SYMC) agreement to buy Blue Coat Systems Inc. for $4.65 billion in cash; and Vista Equity Partners’ purchasing of Infoblox Inc. (NYSE: BLOX), a network services provider that reduces the risk of malware and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

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