IBM to acquire endpoint security company Trusteer

IBM has signed an agreement to acquire security company Trusteer, and plans to set up a cybersecurity software lab in Israel.

The financial terms of the proposed acquisition were not disclosed. With offices in Boston and Tel Aviv, Trusteer is a provider of endpoint cyber-crime prevention technology and services, with customers among the top banks in the U.S., Canada and Australia.

The acquisition will bring to IBM capabilities in the areas of security as a service delivered through the cloud, counter-fraud and advanced persistent threat protection and secure mobile transactions, IBM said Thursday.

The Trusteer technologies will complement IBM’s own software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings and its portfolio of counter-fraud software and services, including QRadar, i2, SPSS, InfoSphere and Enterprise Content Management.

The cyber-security software lab in Israel will combine 200 IBM and Trusteer staff working in the area of software security research and development, and will focus on mobile and application security, advanced threat, malware, counter-fraud, and financial crimes, IBM said. The new lab, called IBM Cybersecurity Software Lab, will be in addition to IBM’s existing research and development facilities in Israel.

Trusteer’s Cybercrime Prevention Architecture combines multi-layer security software with real-time threat intelligence to provide protection against malware and phishing attacks and meet regulatory compliance requirements, the company said on its website.

Founded in 2006, Trusteer has been diversifying outside the financial services market. It announced in July, for example, the general availability of its e-commerce fraud prevention service, to offer “bank grade” security to retailers, social media, dating, gaming and other consumer websites. It set up in April a sales and service centre in Beijing to address demand from financial institutions in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan for its fraud prevention and endpoint protection products.