Fighting malware and spam

Symantec to acquire VeriSign business

Vendor splashes out more cash on authentication.

Symantec, the AV vendor with a reputation for snapping up other companies, has announced its purchase of VeriSign's authentication services business.

The $1.28 billion cash deal - expected to close in the quarter ending in September - follows hot on the heals of two other encryption-related purchases as the company completed deals to acquire PGP and GuardianEdge earlier this month.

Symantec says it plans to combine VeriSign's SSL certificate services with its own protection suite for servers, while the VeriSign Identity Protection user authentication service will complement its Identity Safe capabilities within the Norton product range.

Symantec also plans to incorporate the VeriSign check mark into a new logo once the transaction has completed.

The official announcement of the deal from Symantec is here, with more details here. Industry analysts express their views on the acquisition in a CNet article here.

20 May 2010

Tags: acquisition, ssl, symantec, verisign.    del.icio.us   digg this

1 comment

symantec's explorer protection has no application to chrome.

by James Cheung, 30 May 2010, 04:12

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