McAfee buys Solidcore

McAfee has announced it is to acquire banking and retail software firm Solidcore Systems in a US$43 million deal which will give the firm cutting edge whitelisting capabilities and access to the embedded devices market.

Solidcore software protects over 200,000 endpoints including point of sales systems, multifunction printers, ATMs, mobile and other embedded devices.

Its customers, in over 40 countries, comprise over 100 financial institutions and more than 15000 retail stores.

Solidcore’s whitelisting technology ensures only pre-authorised technology runs on the server, endpoint, mobile or other device.

After the acquisition, McAfee said that the combination of these capabilities with its own compliance mapping and policy auditing would provide customers with an end-to-end compliance solution.

Customers will also be able to manage the technology via McAfee’s centraised ePolicy Orchestrator console, easing the admin burden.

McAfee chief executive Dave DeWalt said that the acquisition would help the security giant further strengthen its position as leader in the lucrative endpoint security market.

“Solidcore’s industry-leading compliance and protection solutions will extend the current McAfee security portfolio beyond signature-based anti-malware with the addition of dynamic whitelisting and application trust technology,” he added.

“Combined with leading McAfee antivirus, antispyware, host intrusion prevention, policy auditing and firewall technologies, we will help customers more easily mitigate the risks associated with vulnerable or malicious applications downloaded by employees,”

McAfee said it would pay an additional US$14 million if certain performance targets were met.