McAfee Acquires App Whitelisting Vendor Solidcore For $33M

In a move designed to expand its compliance management offerings, McAfee today said it is acquiring privately owned Solidcore Systems for approximately $33 million in cash up front, and an earn-out of up to $14 million more if performance targets are met.

Solidcore offers application whitelisting technology that protects against vulnerable or malicious applications and ensures that only preauthorized software and code can run on servers, endpoints, or mobile devices. App whitelisting is sometimes viewed as an aid to compliance because it prevents employees and partners from downloading or using unapproved software.

McAfee says it will combine the Solidcore technology with its own tools to build a comprehensive package of compliance tools. "Following the completion of this proposed acquisition, McAfee expects to couple Solidcore's dynamic whitelisting and compliance enforcement technology with McAfee compliance mapping and policy auditing to deliver the industry's first end-to-end compliance solution," McAfee said.

McAfee will use its ePolicy Orchestrator console to give enterprises centralized management and reporting of the integrated compliance technologies, the company said.

With the Solidcore technology, McAfee plans to add real-time enforcement capabilities that eliminate "compliance drift," according to a statement. "McAfee will offer customers continuous management of the compliance life cycle -- auditing, reporting, remediating, and enforcing -- resulting in reduced costs and faster time to compliance," the statement said.

The Solidcore acquisition will also help McAfee bring its security offerings into the embedded device market, where Solidcore is strong, and into the virtualization space, McAfee said.

Following the closing, which is expected in the second quarter, the Solidcore team will be incorporated into the McAfee Risk and Compliance business unit, McAfee said.

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