Symantec has recently announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire U.S. and Israel-based Skycure, a leader in mobile threat defense. Following completion of the acquisition, Skycure’s predictive threat detection techniques will enrich Symantec’s enterprise and consumer mobility offerings to help organizations more confidently address the needs of the increasingly mobile workforce, enabling them to ensure that devices are risk-free and secure while accessing corporate resources.
Managed and unmanaged devices like tablets and smartphones are growing in prevalence and flooding the workplace, introducing new risk and vulnerabilities. Last year alone, Symantec’s researchers discovered more than 600 new vulnerabilities on iOS and Android operating systems and mobile malware detections doubled to a total of 18.4 million. To help combat this, Skycure uses artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to deliver a single, unified solution that proactively protects mobile devices across all major mobile operating systems, delivering unparalleled depth of threat intelligence to predict and detect the broadest range of threats.
Once Skycure is combined with Symantec’s Integrated Cyber Defense Platform, Symantec’s customers will have access to comprehensive and effective endpoint protection offerings across traditional and mobile devices, with enhanced capabilities for mobile devices, applications, network gateways and data protection. To date, Symantec has invested in mobile security through SEP Cloud and Norton Mobile product lines. The protection capabilities in those product lines will expand with this acquisition and puts Symantec on the path to protect more than 1 billion endpoints.
Symantec also announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Israel-based Fireglass, the leading agentless isolation solution that eliminates ransomware, malware and phishing threats in real-time by preventing potentially harmful content from ever reaching user endpoints or the corporate network. With this acquisition, Symantec further strengthens its Integrated Cyber Defense Platform and dramatically extends the Company’s leadership in Secure Web Gateway and Email protection delivered both on premises and in the cloud.
Fireglass’ innovative approach to browser isolation substantially reduces the attack surface, strengthening an enterprise’s security posture and as a result, significantly reduces the burden on the Company’s security operation center (SOC) and IT help desk. Users are protected regardless of the links they click or the uncategorized websites they visit, as all potentially harmful website and email content and attachments are executed within a fully protected and separate environment, eliminating the most common infiltration points for ransomware, exploits and malware. Delivered as a cloud service, on premises, or in a hybrid model, Fireglass provides a transparent and worry-free end user experience, with customers reporting a dramatic reduction in problem tickets and the resulting workload of the security team.
Greg Clark, Symantec CEO said, “Integrating Fireglass’ isolation technology with Symantec’s existing endpoint, email and secure web gateway solutions could reduce security events by as much as 70 percent, while virtually eliminating advanced threats spread by web browsing or email content. Isolation will become a core component in the design of cyber defense architectures for the cloud generation who face the reality of an encrypted Internet and the crisis inherent in email and web-delivered attacks. The ability for the security team to take an aggressive stance on unknown websites and questionable attachments without causing chaos for a company’s users and IT help desk is now a reality. Isolation is a key element of securing the cloud generation and is even a productivity gain for both the end user and security operations center.”
Guy Guzner, Founder and CEO of Fireglass, said, “We’ve long admired Symantec for their leadership in protecting customers’ critical information. Fireglass’ industry-leading isolation technology helps customers battle zero-day attacks and other serious vulnerabilities, making it an essential element for protecting email, messaging and web browsing. It easily integrates with existing security solutions and across all forms of the endpoint including Windows, Mac, Android, iOS and all others including browser-enabled IoT devices. With Symantec’s global scale, we’re excited to bring this groundbreaking technology into the hands of more customers.”