January 13th, 2009
AVG snaps up Sana Security
One of the last stand-alone host-based intrusion detection product vendors has been picked up by an anti-virus firm.
The Redwood City-based HIPS vendor Sana Security has been acquired by the popular AV vendor AVG for an undisclosed sum. What is HIPS you may ask? Think of it as a firewall for the operating system kernel that prevents applications from issuing commands to your system that are indicative of malware-like behavior. Newer HIPS products have adaptive ruleset engines that recognize when applications start issuing atypical system calls.
Sana followed into the well-trodden footsteps of every other HIPS technology that comes to mind by being acquired for what was likely a minimal sum and being subsequently subsumed into a larger offering. Let this be a lesson to those of you starting security companies: if you are going to build a technology, either make sure that the technology is light years ahead of what is on the market and is a must have for a large number of potential acquirers or create a good product story to go with it. Otherwise the revenues will not develop fast enough to cover the investment for the technology development.
For the truly interested parties, Andy Jaquith has a full blown analysis of the acquisition up on the Forrester blog.
Adam J. O'Donnell, Ph.D. is an R&D engineer who has focused on computer security since 2000. He currently is the Director of Emerging Technologies at Cloudmark, a messaging security company located in San Francisco. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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