Securosis Blog

BeyondTrust Acquires Lumigent Assets

Adrian Lane · May 17, 2011

BeyondTrust announced today that it has acquired the assets of Database Activity Monitoring vendor Lumigent. Some of you are saying “Who?” Others, who have been around the DAM space a few years, shake your heads in dismay at what might have been. There was a time – way back in the 2004-2005 timeframe – that Lumigent had a clear leadership position in the Database Activity Monitoring space. They won many head-to-head sales engagements. They had a good sales and marketing team, the best…

The M&A train gathers steam in the security space. With Lumigent’s assets off the table, the TripWire buy, Sophos/Astaro, and RSA/NetWitness, it seems the busiest guys in town are the investment bankers. VMware has joined the parade by buying configuration management player Shavlik, ostensibly to facilitate the adoption of virtualization in the SMB market segment, though we believe that oversimplifies VMware’s ambition to be a one-stop shop for all things virtual infrastructure.

Defining Failure

Mike Rothman · May 16, 2011

Given the hard time we have defining success in the security field, you’d think we must have at least a firm handle on failure. But that isn’t entirely the case. As both an entrepreneur and a security guy, I may have a different perspective on failure, which influences how I look at pretty much all our business activities. I read a lot of VC and entrepreneur blogs, not because I want to raise money – in fact I’d rather hook my soft targets to a car battery than take outside investment. But I…

With some fanfare, the US executive branch (the White House) unveiled a proposal for cybersecurity legislation “focused on improving cybersecurity for the American people, our Nation’s critical infrastructure, and the Federal Government’s own networks and computers.”

Friday Summary: May 13, 2011

Rich · May 12, 2011

If you follow me on Twitter (@rmogull) you might suspect that last week I took a short vacation. And that said vacation started somewhat auspiciously. And said event really pissed me off to a degree I normally don’t let myself hit. And, just perhaps, American Airlines was responsible.

Thoma Bravo Trips the Wire Fantastic

Mike Rothman · May 12, 2011

With the global economy apparently warming and lots of IPOs hitting the Street, it was a bit surprising to see TripWire opt for a buyout by Thoma Bravo, as opposed to continuing with their IPO plans. But I found an article by the local Portland OR Business Journal which explained things a bit.

Looking back over 30+ years, I realize my athletic career peaked at 10. I played First Base on the Monsey Orioles (“Minor League”). Our team was stacked, and we won the championship. I kept playing baseball for a few more years but my teams never made it to the championship, and when the bases moved out to 90 feet my lead feet became the beginning of the end. But it’s okay – I was pretty good with computers and in chess club too. Yep, I was fitted for my tool belt pretty early.

Do you ever think about how you could just disappear? Or become someone else? Maybe only I do that after reading one too many Jason Bourne novels. Given anyone’s ability, with a keyboard and an Internet connection, to become anyone (even Abraham Lincoln is spewing quotes on Twitter now), what does ‘identity’ mean now? In the future? And is your ‘identity’ singular, or will it become identities moving forward?

SIEM: Out with the Old

Adrian Lane · May 10, 2011

About 4 years ago we saw the first big wave of replacements of older email security tools with a second generation we now call ‘content security’. Early email security products were deployed in-house and focused on anti-virus, anti-spam, and mail server integration. The current generation of products offered new SaaS and hybrid deployment models, technology advancements in web and content filtering, more elastic service sets, and centralized web management consoles. And let’s not forget the…

Friday Summary: May 6, 2011

Adrian Lane · May 6, 2011

A few months back one my dogs knocked over one my speakers. Sent it flying, actually. 3’ 50lb wood cabinet speaker – as if it wasn’t there. The culprit is still a puppy, but when she gets ripping, she can pretty much take out any piece of furniture I own. And she has a big butt. She seems to run into everything butt first, which is impressive as she does not walk backwards. Wife calls her ‘J-Lo’. She learned how to spin from playing with my boxer, and now she spins out of control when she is…