Network security vendor Infoblox is expanding its capabilities by way of a $45 million acquisition of privately held cyber-threat intelligence vendor IID. The deal will provide Infoblox with new security features that address the growing threat intelligence needs to help protect network security.
Infoblox is what is known as a DDI—DNS (Domain Name System), DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) and IP address—vendor, helping organizations manage those core network services. In a call with press and analysts discussing the acquisition, Jesper Andersen, president and CEO of Infoblox, said that IID’s technology will help his company differentiate itself from other DDI vendors.
“This acquisition brings together IID’s superior cyber-intelligence and our best-in-class network control infrastructure to provide customers with truly context-aware security and improved operational viability,” Andersen said.
The plan is for IID’s technology to complement Infoblox’s DDI products, providing better security that can detect malicious threats both inside and outside of an organization.
The Infoblox portfolio currently includes a hardened DNS appliance that does not overlap with IID’s technology. In addition, Infoblox has a DNS Firewall, which includes a continuous feed of threat intelligence that can be used to help protect against malicious DNS queries and block bad traffic. The plan is to make use of the IID threat feeds to enable the next generation of Infoblox’s DNS Firewall.
The idea of combining threat intelligence with DDI is not a new one for Infoblox. Andersen noted that Infoblox has been selling a DNS firewall technology for more than a year, which is currently powered by a ThreatStop threat feed that is pulled into an Infoblox DNS control point.
“ThreatStop has been a great partner of ours,” he said. “Going forward, we now have our own threat feed, so that’s what we’ll be basing our solutions on.”
In addition to a machine-readable threat intelligence feed, IID also has a cloud-based platform for threat intelligence federation, according to Andersen. With the IID cloud platform, customers and organizations can share threat intelligence, which is another large opportunity for growth at Infoblox, he said.
The threat intelligence space is a very crowded one, with multiple vendors and technologies all aiming to help organizations gain insight into cyber-threats. One such vendor is iSight, which was acquired by FireEye for $200 million on Jan. 20.
“iSight and IID are actually partners with each other and Infoblox is a partner with FireEye, and I don’t see that changing,” Andersen said. “The threat intelligence space is one where many vendors share information to have the best possible intelligence for the customer.”
Infoblox’s existing partnership with FireEye enables DNS-level threats detected by Infoblox to be used by FireEye’s protection technologies.
“We’re not trying to be the end-all, be-all security vendor,” Andersen said. “We’re just laser-focused on doing the best possible job in securing DNS.”
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.