British security firm Sophos has acquired unified threat management provider Astaro to round out its networking security portfolio.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Sophos will be able to provide complete data and threat protection for IT, regardless of device type, user location or network boundaries, Sophos said on May 6. The combined company will offer endpoint Web security protection and Web filtering with integrated policy management and reporting on the gateway, Arabella Hallawell, vice president of corporate strategy at Sophos, told eWEEK.
“The combination of Astaro’s comprehensive portfolio of network security solutions alongside our endpoint, mobile, and email and Web threat and data protection capabilities will enable us to continue to deliver on our vision of providing complete security without complexity wherever the user and company data resides,” said Steve Munford, CEO of Sophos.
With this acquisition, Sophos now has access to gateway security solutions. Astaro’s UTM appliance line is an all-in-one box that includes firewall, intrusion prevention, URL blocking and other security features. UTMs are designed to simplify security management and are typically targeted for the small and medium enterprise and branch offices of large corporations
Security solutions have been needlessly complex, and enterprises are just not using them, James Lyne, director of technology strategy at Sophos, told eWEEK. IT managers need to be able to just say, “Protect my users” without fiddling with multiple options and policies, Lyne said.
Astaro was the fourth largest dedicated UTM provider with more than 56,000 installations in over 60 countries, according to Sophos. The company reported $56 million in revenue in 2010. Hallawell said the combined company will be heading for $500 million in 2012.
Astaro is a “strategic investment into the network security business,” and will be “an adjacent and complementary business” for Sophos, said Hallawell.
For more, read the eWEEK article: Sophos Acquires Astaro to Add UTM to Network Security Portfolio.
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