PatchLink Buys SecureWave

PatchLink yesterday acquired endpoint security vendor SecureWave, paving the way for a combined offering that might make it easier for enterprises to manage client security.

Terms of the all-stock deal between the two private companies were not disclosed.

SecureWave's Sanctuary is a policy enforcement suite that uses whitelisting to enable only authorized applications to run and only authorized devices to connect to laptops, PCs, or servers. These capabilities, combined with PatchLink’s patch and vulnerability management products, will make it easier to proactively enforce application and device security policies and automatically patch and remediate vulnerabilities across an entire IT infrastructure, the partners say.

"The key phrase we're using is 'unified protection and control,' " says Dennis Szerszen, senior vice president at SecureWave. "Most of our customers have a number of different security agents they're using at the client, from antivirus to security control to vulnerability assessment. One of the things we can do [in this merger] is try to flatten the desktop infrastructure and deliver one unified agent, and maybe one console for managing policy."

PatchLink offers tools for assessing vulnerability at the endpoint and patching it, the partners say. SecureWave offers tools for protecting the endpoint from unauthorized access and enforcing security policy at the client. Together, the two companies could create a suite of tools to help enterprises find the weaknesses in their endpoints, patch or protect them, then ensure that end users continue to follow security policies, they say.

Collectively, the two companies already have nearly 5,000 customers, and their products protect some 14 million endpoints, the executives say. The companies have virtually no overlap between their product lines, and both rely heavily on the reseller channel for most sales.

Together, the two companies also have significant security management capabilities, but the combined organization has no plans to compete with security information management vendors, Szerszen says. (See A Multitude of SIMs.)

"What they are doing is event management and correlation, and that's not what we're talking about here," he states. "We're focused on security management from a policy enforcement perspective."

The deal is subject to the approval of SecureWave shareholders and is expected to be completed "in coming weeks," the partners say.

— Tim Wilson, Site Editor, Dark Reading