Facebook plans to beef up its own server security by acquiring PrivateCore, which develops software to validate and secure server data.

The two-year-old Palo Alto company specializes in securing servers for the cloud, with support for OpenStack and Puppet.

PrivateCore's vCage technology "protects servers from persistent malware, unauthorized physical access, and malicious hardware devices, making it safer to run any application in outsourced, hosted, or cloud environments," Facebook 's Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan wrote in a post on the social network Thursday, adding, "The team at PrivateCore is also made up of top-notch security veterans with a lot of experience."

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Oded Horovitz, PrivateCore CEO and co-founder, said in an announcement on the company website, "Facebook has done more than any company to connect the world, and we want to use our secure server technology to help make the world's connections more secure."

Figure 1: Source: Nopple

Horovitz's resume includes stints at VMware, McAfee, Entercept and the Israeli Defense Force. Co-founder Steve Weis was previously a technical director at AppDirect and a senior engineer at Google, where he says he led the design of two-step verification.

PrivateCore is funded by Foundation Capital. Facebook's stock was up slightly, 0.97%, to $73.17 on Thursday afternoon after the acquisition was announced.

— Mitch Wagner, , West Coast Bureau Chief, Light Reading. Got a tip about SDN or NFV? Send it to [email protected].