Trend Micro to Snap Up Provilla for DLP

Trend Micro announced plans Thursday to purchase Provilla, becoming the latest security firm to add data loss prevention tools via acquisition.

The Japan-based Trend Micro will operate Provilla, based in Mountain View, Calif., as a subsidiary of Trend Micros U.S. affiliate. Provillas products specialize in intelligent content filtering and policy enforcement, capabilities Trend Micro officials said they hope to leverage.

Trend Micro will continue to offer Provillas stand-alone products for the near term as well as to gradually integrate Provillas capabilities into their portfolio. John Racioppi, vice president of strategic alliances and business development at Trend Micro, said the two companies are in the process of working out their integration plans and were not ready yet to offer a firm date as to when a fully integrated product would hit the market.

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Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The purchase follows a string of acquisitions in the DLP (data loss prevention) market, including McAfees announcement this month that would acquire encryption vendor SafeBoot.

To read more about Trend Micros fast track for managed service providers, click here.

Earlier this year, Websense, of San Diego, Calif., bought Port Authority for $90 million, and Cisco Systems, of San Jose, Calif., jumped into the space when it acquired e-mail filter and anti-spam provider IronPort. There are also persistent rumors that security rival Symantec is looking to purchase Vontu, one of the larger DLP vendors.

Expect the acquisitions to continue as more and more desktop security vendors look to enter the DLP space, said Gartner analyst Eric Ouellet said

"Its one of the few technologies that has direct value for corporations that are trying to be compliant," he said.

Trend Micro CEO Eva Chen said the move continues her companys focus on protecting enterprises against the latest threats, be they internal or external.

"Solving this growing problem will require broader and deeper insight into the multiple endpoint data leak vulnerabilities and the use of intelligent solutions that can identify sensitive data and prevent its misuse through endpoint devices and channels," she said in a statement. "The acquisition of Provilla strengthens our ability to execute on our content-security strategy, with technology and products complementing our own.

Editors Note: This story was updated to reflect that Trend Micro is based in Japan. An earlier version of this story stated the company was based in Taiwan.

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