Blue Coat Acquires Norman Shark

Blue Coat Systems has acquired Norman Shark, a leader in malware analysis solutions for enterprises, service providers and government. The acquisition unites the industry’s most proven zero-day sandboxing technology with Blue Coat’s leading Advanced Threat Protection solution to help customers bridge the gap between identification of advanced persistent threats and resolution of those threats.

“We have a long history of high performance web traffic processing, and by combining the industry’s most proven sandboxing technology in-line with our market leading secure web gateway, we are removing an obstacle enterprises have faced up to now,” said Greg Clark, CEO of Blue Coat Systems. “Integration of the Norman Shark technology with the Blue Coat Content Analysis System and Security Analytics Platform delivers a solution that protects against zero-day threats before, during and after an attack by detecting, analyzing, blocking, resolving and fortifying the network against unknown and latent threats.”

Norman Shark brings to Blue Coat a world class research and malware analysis team, and its sandboxing technology represents the most mature and proven in the industry with the ability to scale to support enterprise requirements. Norman Shark’s IntelliVM and SandBox emulation technologies provide advanced security teams the ability to analyze any threat type, in any version of any application they choose. This allows security teams to gather intelligence on malware targeting their specific environment and application vulnerabilities in order to more effectively contain and resolve the incident. Blue Coat already integrates the Norman Shark technology into its Malware Analysis Appliance to deliver the industry’s most robust sandboxing capability.

“Blue Coat’s acquisition of Norman Shark is a great addition to the company’s advanced malware prevention, detection, and analytics capabilities,” said Jon Oltsik, Senior Principal Analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. “The market is growing very quickly, and ESG believes that enterprises need strong integrated solutions to identify, contain and resolve advanced persistent threats in a more automated way.”

Unlike point solutions, the new Blue Coat Advanced Threat Protection solution, which integrates the Norman Shark malware analysis technology, provides a lifecycle defense that fortifies the network against unknown and latent threats. The combined advanced threat protection technologies improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Blue Coat Global Intelligence Network’s ability to dynamically protect all Blue Coat customers. This comprehensive approach allows IT organizations to move beyond protection to empowering the business.

“Our team is a trusted provider to some of the largest, most demanding companies in the world and earned that position with a commitment to excellence in technology,” said Stein Surlien, CEO of Norman Shark. “The power of our sandboxing technology combined with Blue Coat’s gateway security and security analytics gives enterprises unmatched advanced persistent threat detection, root-cause analysis and resolution.”

As part of its commitment to securely empowering businesses, Blue Coat continues to execute on its strategy of acquiring strategically important, best-of-breed technologies to deliver Business Assurance

Technology solutions. The Norman Shark acquisition complements earlier acquisitions of Solera Networks and SSL technology from Netronome to provide customers with the industry’s only lifecycle defense against advanced persistent threats.