A Look Back at the 7 Top Security Acquisitions of 2009

A Look Back at the 7 Top Security Acquisitions of 2009By Brian Prince

This was an important deal for McAfee, which brought a respected security software-as-a-service business into its portfolio. The deal put McAfee in a better position to compete with Symantec, which purchased MessageLabs at the end of 2008.

This acquisition by Trend Micro gives them more tools with which to target virtualization and cloud computing security. According to Trend, the acquisition fits in nicely with their strategy to help enterprises secure data centers.

The purchase of ScanSafe was meant to give Cisco a cloud-based offering to complement the on-premises solutions it provides with its IronPort appliances. In a space where its competitors were increasingly buying up cloud-based services, Cisco made the buy to ensure to help them compete.

VeriSign sold its managed security services business to SecureWorks earlier this year, and then followed that up by selling its security consulting business to AT&T in October. “(VeriSign’s) intent to focus on its ‘core business’ feeds into the consolidation trend among [managed security service providers], particularly SecureWorks, who is one of the few remaining pure plays with such a broad portfolio,” opined Scott Crawford, an analyst with Enterprise Management Associates.

This purchase brought Guardium’s database security technologies into IBM’s portfolio. According to IBM, the acquisition was the 28th purchase IBM has made as part of its Information Management strategy, and was aimed at bringing a new level of real-time enterprise database monitoring and data protection to IBM.

Rapid7’s acquisition of the open source Metasploit Project raised some eyebrows among pen-testers. The purchase combines Rapid7’s vulnerability management focus with Metasploit’s large database of exploits, and is expected to challenge pen-testing companies like Core Security and Immunity.

The deal is the latest in a string of acquisitions and mergers by the M86. Formed last year by the merger of Marshal and 8e6 Technologies and later renamed M86 Security in September, the company also acquired Avinti in April for its behavioral-based detection technology. Buying Finjan brought that company’s enterprise-class secure gateway and software-as-a-service business into the M86 fold.