A month after word leaked that it had acquired infrastructure monitoring specalist Cloudyn Software Ltd. for as much as $70 million, Microsoft Corp. is reportedly making another purchase in Israel.

Hebrew-language financial publication Calcalist revealed on Wednesday that the technology giant has agreed to buy Hexadite Ltd. in a $100 million deal. The startup sells a threat detection platform that uses artificial intelligence to elevate the load on companies’ breach prevention personnel. The Automated Incident Response Solution, as it’s called, can automatically investigate the thousands upon thousands of security incidents that occur in a large organization’s network every week.

Hexadite claims that the software’s evaluation methods are modeled after the “processes used by top cyber analysts.” When a new alert comes down the pipe, AIRS deploys an agent to the affected hardware that investigates the source of the notification. If a breach is identified, the platform will analyze the diagnosis information collected by its agent to determine if the threat may have spread elsewhere.

According to Hexadite, AIRS can launch follow-up investigations after the initial scan to map out the full scope of an incident. The startup claims that its automated approach enables companies to look into more alerts than they otherwise could while freeing up security personnel to focus on high-value activities.

One way Microsoft could use the technology is by incorporating its capabilities into Azure to help customers better monitor their cloud deployments. If that proves to be the company’s plan, AIRS will likely be integrated into its Azure Security Center service, which allows administrators to look for potential threats through a unified console. 

The acquisition of Hexadite is part of a long-term program that sees Microsoft invest about a $1 billion in cybersecurity every year. A few months ago, the company drew on the cash pool to back Team8, an Israeli startup foundry that has incubated several rising stars in the cybersecurity market.

Image: Microsoft