Intel Boosts Security Capabilities With Sensory Networks Buy

Intel reportedly is growing its security software capabilities by acquiring Sensory Networks, whose technology maps networks to find patterns and detect security problems like spam and malware.

Intel spokespeople have confirmed the acquisition of the 11-year-old company, but declined to discuss financial aspects. Sources have told The Wall Street Journal that the price was about $20 million.

Sensory becomes the latest security technology vendor Intel has scooped up as it looks to bring greater security capabilities to its chips and other products. Intel bought McAfee in 2011 for almost $7.7 billion and made it a wholly-owned subsidiary.

In May, McAfee bought Stonesoft, a next-generation firewall vendor, for $389 million. Next-generation firewalls inspect network packets going in and out of corporate networks to prevent compromises and block data exfiltration. Stonesoft focuses on blocking sophisticated attacks that use advanced evasion techniques to dodge other defenses.

Sensory Networks’ HyperScan offering is used by applications that require the high-speed scanning of large amounts of data, such as intrusion prevention, antivirus and deep-packet inspection systems. It can support multiple processor architectures and operating systems.

The company already was a partner of Intel and Wind River, another Intel subsidiary that builds software for mobile and embedded systems. Sensory Networks is also a partner of other semiconductor vendors—including ARM, Broadcom and Freescale Semiconductor—and some of those partnerships will go by the wayside now that Intel has bought the company, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The company is also a partner of security software vendor Kaspersky Lab.

Sensory Networks, founded in 2002 and based in Mountain View, Calif., with an R&D office in Australia, originally was selling hardware acceleration appliances for pattern matching until switching over to a software-only approach, according to company officials.