August, 5, 2008 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Dedicated security technology provider McAfee (mcafee.com) has announced a definitive agreement to buy privately held data loss prevention company Reconnex for $46 million cash for its unique technology, which learns and adapts to automate the ongoing protection of data.
According to the announcement late last week, McAfee expects the acquisition to expand its position in proactive security and risk management solutions.
"Data protection is the number one concern of chief information security officer's, but today's DLP solutions take too long to deploy and obtain results," McAfee chief executive officer and president Dave DeWalt said in a statement. "With the pending acquisition of Reconnex, McAfee expects to redefine the entire data protection market by bringing together a leader in the hottest segment with our comprehensive portfolio of data protection technologies. We expect that this will enable us to leapfrog other data protection vendors and to reinforce our position as the largest dedicated security company."
Reconnex technology helps a company protect all the information assets on its network without requiring knowledge of what needs to be protected, regardless of how that information is stored, secured or communicated.
According to IDC (idc.com) security research analyst Brian Burke, the number of high-profile leaks of customer records, confidential information and intellectual property has caused "an explosive demand for solutions that protect against the deliberate or inadvertent release of sensitive information," Burke said in a statement.
"This acquisition creates a great opportunity for McAfee to fulfill a critical need in this space. IDC forecasts worldwide revenue for the information protection and control market to grow from $765 million in 2006 to $3.2 billion in 2011, representing a 33 percent compound annual growth rate," Burke said. "Reconnex's gateway-based technology perfectly compliments McAfee's existing host based data protection solution and will position McAfee securely in this space."
In keeping with McAfee's efforts to build a complete data protection and compliance package, Reconnex's products help meet the significant demand for adaptive data protection, according to McAfee. Having more than 60 million worldwide nodes managed by McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator, McAfee plans to bring automated, centrally managed and adaptive protection to its current customer base.
