By now you’ve probably heard about McAfee’s acquisition of SafeBoot and ScanAlert. Given the array of eligible candidates, however, you might be wondering what led us to choose these two companies over all the others out there. Here’s a bit more on the why behind the acquisitions and how they will support our overall efforts to protect what you value, whether you are an individual at home or a global enterprise of thousands.

SafeBoot: Data encryption

Why encryption?
When it comes right down to it, the key drivers of the encryption market are the same as those of the data loss prevention market. In addition to compliance with both government and industry regulations, the main drivers are fear and cost.

Fear of:

• Losing intellectual property, such as customer lists, drug formulas, and Social Security numbers
• Ending up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or the websites of organizations such as the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (www.privacyrights.org) which report on security breaches

Cost of:

• Fixing the problem if there is a breach (notifying customers can cost millions of dollars in mailing costs alone)
• Damaging brand equity and taking the related market capitalization hit
• Losing customer trust—and ultimately losing customers

No one wants to experience a security breach in the first place, but if it does happen, encryption adds an extra layer of protection that will keep any lost or stolen data from being used maliciously. And while many countries and states require mass notification of a breach, if a company can prove that the data in question was encrypted, it is exempt from that requirement. (See this month’s article on encryption for more details.) That translates into avoiding these problems altogether.

Why SafeBoot?
The SafeBoot Data Protection Suite enables users to encrypt entire hard drives, individual files and folders, shared servers and USB storage, as well as mobile devices such as cell phones and PDAs. After a thorough analysis of the encryption market, we decided that in addition to its innovative technology, SafeBoot was unique in a number of ways:

• Broad product line (see above)
• International operations (Dutch headquarters. U.K. development team, U.S.-based CEO and CTO) and a global-ready product shipped in 21 languages to more than 4,200 active customers in 76 countries
• Extremely well-run organization with a strong management team
• Solid financials, rapid growth rate

We also plan to pursue SafeBoot's significant and untapped opportunities in the SMB and consumer markets, because the loss of valuable data can be just as costly to these groups as it is to large enterprises. With SafeBoot, we can now effectively block the intentional or unintentional misappropriation of a company’s confidential information for companies of any size.

ScanAlert: Auditing and certification of ecommerce sites
Why auditing and certification?
U.S. consumers will spend nearly $160 billion this year on products and services online. This ecommerce explosion has opened the door to cyber criminals looking to steal valuable personal information. (Our colleague Rajesh Venkat discusses this issue in depth in this month’s issue.) Vulnerabilities found in web applications are surpassing those discovered in Microsoft Windows and desktop software, so knowing where it’s safe to shop online has become a significant concern for consumers. That’s why trusted, independent auditing and certification of ecommerce sites is so important.

McAfee has been protecting computers on the desktop for years, and in 2006 we expanded that protection to cyberspace through our acquisition of SiteAdvisor. McAfee SiteAdvisor™ analyzes and rates web sites for unsafe or annoying practices, such as dangerous downloads, spamming, misuse of personal information or browser hijacking. It is free at >http://www.siteadvisor.com and has been downloaded more than 90 million times.

Why ScanAlert?
While until now, we have been making it safe for consumers to search and surf the web, with ScanAlert we are making it significantly safer to shop there too. Without question, ScanAlert is the leader in the ecommerce certification market, with its Hacker Safe trust mark on more than 75,000 sites that conduct more than 15 million ecommerce transactions per month. Sites certified as “Hacker Safe” undergo a security audit, which scans the site for vulnerabilities and identifies and verifies security fixes. The Hacker Safe security trust mark is displayed on trusted brands such as the American Red Cross, Toshiba and Warner Brothers.

ScanAlert’s Hacker Safe essentially takes the protection of SiteAdvisor one step further and extends it to online commerce. The integration will enhance our web rating system and benefit both consumers, who want to enjoy a safe online experience, as well as ecommerce sites, which enjoy 14 percent higher conversation rates when they display a Hacker Safe logo. This acquisition also enhances McAfee’s “triple play protection,” securing consumers on the PC, Web and mobile platforms.

Enhancing data protection across the board
The SafeBoot and ScanAlert acquisitions, while coincidental in their proximity, are not coincidental in their shared intent, which is to protect the valuable data of enterprises, SMBs and consumers. McAfee’s goal is to provide comprehensive security in all sectors. We speak regularly with our customers as part of our ongoing efforts to meet their evolving security needs. We are always looking to develop or acquire innovative technologies to integrate into our product lines. And these two recent acquisitions demonstrate prudent, consistent execution of that strategy.