McAfee acquires website trust mark firm

ScanAlert certification system bought for $51 million.

McAfee has bought ScanAlert, the firm behind the 'Hacker Safe' trust mark logo, carried by some 75,000 websites to indicate safe practices and freedom from malware and spamming. The technology will be added to McAfee's SiteAdvisor safe browsing system.

In a deal worth $51 million in cash, plus a possible $24 million more depending on performance, McAfee took over the 130-strong company based in California to add an e-commerce angle to its web security business, complementing the end-user SiteAdvisor product which claims to have analysed 95% of the 'trafficked' internet for security issues.

Sites wishing to carry the Hacker Safe logo undergo a security audit and vulnerability assessment, updated daily. ScanAlert expects to bring in between $15 and $20 million in 2007, with the acquisition to be finalised in early 2008.

More information on the acquisition, including PDF press releases and overviews of future plans for the product, is at McAfee here. A blog entry from McAfee CEO David DeWalt is here.

31 October 2007

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