Mastercard is dropping billions on AI-powered cybersecurity. In September, the global payments firm announced it had reached an agreement to buy Recorded Future, a threat intel provider that has been among the most notable cybersecurity companies betting on generative AI.
The deal will see Mastercard acquire Recorded Future from private equity firm Insight Partners for $2.65 billion, according to a company announcement. Recorded Future co-founder and CEO Christopher Ahlberg wrote in a separate post that instead of being absorbed into Mastercard’s operations, the firm will continue to operate as an “independent subsidiary.”
“The worlds between cyber and fraud are all becoming grayed out, and there’s the space between it,” Johan Gerber, Mastercard’s EVP and head of security solutions, told IT Brew.
Recorded Future’s website claims the company has clients in 75 countries, and it reportedly first launched features integrating OpenAI’s GPT model in early 2023. The deal with Mastercard is expected to close in Q1 2025, according to the announcement.
Making threat intel actionable. Gerber said the firm’s interest in the acquisition stems in large part from how Recorded Future uses a large language model (LLM) to increase the actionability of its threat data. That LLM is queryable and trained on a threat intelligence graph incorporating numerous sources of information, including dark web sales.
According to Gerber, that LLM technology will help the transnational Mastercard rapidly disseminate intelligence on threats like fraudsters and hackers throughout the organization.
“Data is fundamentally important,” Gerber said. “This company brings a lot of data; Mastercard has a lot of data. You put AI on top of it, and as AI evolves and becomes even more powerful and sophisticated, you will still need data fundamentally at the bottom of this.”
“So, this positions us really, really well to leverage the growth and strength of AI in the future,” he added. “Yes, it is a bet on the future, but it’s a pretty safe bet.”
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Gerber said Recorded Future has modules that provide Mastercard with intelligence not only on cyber threats, but financial crimes, identity theft, and regulatory compliance—all of which help address longstanding requests by partners and clients. The firm also has cloud agnostic architecture, increasing its compatibility with various clients.
“Ultimately, intelligence without action is also useless,” he added. “So, you need to find ways to actually turn this into something that is actionable.”
Importantly, Gerber added, the data and tools Recorded Future brings to the table will help Mastercard fine-tune the level of friction it applies to certain transactions in real time.
“Friction by design is a really important thing to underscore trust,” Gerber said. “If everything can just happen without any friction, people will lose trust. So, trust at the right time, or friction at the right time, actually really helps us build trust.”
“But I want to get that friction exactly right, I don’t want to do it unnecessarily, so having that real-time intelligence just helps us do that,” he added.
Think small. While Mastercard’s primary business is its card network, in recent years it has invested in expanding value-added services like data analytics, fraud detection, identity, and authentication. It also has a longer-term focus on the business-to-business market, such as medical claim payments.
Gerber said LLMs will help Mastercard engage with small businesses on its network that don’t necessarily have the know-how or resources to deal with security threats that its larger B2B partners do.
“We have millions of small businesses on our network, using our credit cards to pay for their expenses and their day-to-day running of the company,” he said. “We can now use that channel to feed information to help them be safer, to be more prepared and ready for when these things happen.”