Symantec to acquire WholeSecurity, provider of behavior-based security and anti-phishing technology

September 23, 2005

2 Min Read

CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq:SYMC - News) today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire WholeSecurity, Inc., a leading provider of behavior-based security and anti-phishing technology. WholeSecurity's technology analyzes the characteristics and actions of viruses, worms and other malicious code to offer real-time protection against these threats without the need for traditional security signatures. The transaction is expected to close in October.

"WholeSecurity provides industry leading protection from phishing attacks, one of the fastest growing threats to online transactions, such as banking, e-commerce, and auctions," said Enrique Salem, senior vice president, Symantec Security Products and Solutions. "In addition, WholeSecurity's family of solutions provides critical behavior-based security technology that we expect to be a core component of Symantec's baseline consumer security and enterprise desktop solutions."

Behavior-based security technology identifies online threats such as worms, viruses, Trojan horses, keystroke loggers, and phishing sites by their actions and characteristics. WholeSecurity's Confidence Online analyzes the behavior exhibited by these threats against hundreds of detection modules to determine whether the active processes or web sites are safe or malicious. This technology can immediately detect and mitigate unknown threats by their behavior without traditional signatures or patches thereby protecting users against zero-day attacks.

WholeSecurity's unique patent-pending behavior-based technology addresses applications ranging from browser-based phishing detection and notification to on-demand delivery of malicious code detection.

"We have been the first line of defense for our customers, protecting them against new forms of malicious threats before signatures can be created," said J. Peter Selda, president and chief executive officer, WholeSecurity. "Combining our behavior-based technology with Symantec's industry leading solutions will allow us to deliver this capability to a much broader audience and move us further toward our vision of providing zero-hour protection for every endpoint."

Symantec Corp.

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