IBM announced
its agreement to acquire privately held Q1 Labs, a provider of security
intelligence software.
The
acquisition aims to accelerate IBM’s efforts to help clients more intelligently
secure their enterprises by applying analytics to correlate information from
key security domains and creating security dashboards for their organizations.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Q1 Labs will
join the newly-formed IBM Security Systems division, representing the world’s
most comprehensive security portfolio. After the close, IBM intends the
new division to be led by Brendan Hannigan, CEO of Q1 Labs.
“Since
perimeter defense alone is no longer capable of thwarting all threats, IBM is
in a unique position to shift security thinking to an integrated, predictive
approach,” said Brendan Hannigan.
Q1 Labs
technology will also create a common security platform for IBM’s software,
hardware, services and research offerings. Clients will benefit from more
tightly integrated products, a unified roadmap and accelerated time-to-value on
investments to build more intelligent security systems.
IBM
estimates the new division will target a $94 billion opportunity in security
software and services, which has a nearly 12 percent compound annual growth
rate. Q1 Labs will join the more than 10 strategic security acquisitions IBM
has made in the last decade and the more than 25 analytics-related purchases,
including the recently announced acquisition of security analytics software
firm, i2.
Firms must be
equipped to identify threats, detect insider fraud, predict business risk and
address regulatory mandates. Three quarters of firms feel cyberattacks are hard
to detect and their effectiveness would increase with end-to-end solutions,
according to a recent industry report.
Q1 Labs’
advanced analytics and correlation capabilities can automatically detect and
flag actions across an enterprise that deviate from prescribed policies and
typical behavior to help prevent breaches, such as an employee accessing
unauthorized information.
IBM’s new
Security Systems division integrates IBM’s Tivoli, Rational and Information
Management security software, appliances, lab offerings and services.
IBM plans to
apply Q1 Labs’ analytics to drive greater security intelligence capabilities
across its security products and services such as identity and access
management, database security, application security, enterprise risk
management, intrusion prevention, endpoint management and network security.
“Realigning
IBM’s security expertise in a new division with a greater focus on analytics is
a bold step IBM is taking to help clients stay ahead of growing security
threats,” said Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president, IBM Middleware
Software.
Recently, IBM announced that it has been selected
by Yi Lian Zhong Information Technology (YLZ), a provider of information
services in China, to build a cloud computing platform that will improve the
life of citizens in China via an online portal for a variety of social
services.
By
Telecomlead.com Team
[email protected]
