Symark acquires BeyondTrust |
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By Marcia Savage, Features Editor, Information Security magazine
14 Sep 2009 | SearchFinancialSecurity.com |
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Symark International Inc., a provider of privileged access management products, has expanded its reach beyond Unix and Linux to Windows with its acquisition of BeyondTrust.
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Agoura Hills, Calif.-based Symark announced the deal Monday. Terms were not disclosed. Symark, which markets its products as privileged access lifecycle management, also is taking the BeyondTrust name. BeyondTrust, Portsmouth, N.H., specializes in controlling privileged user access on the Windows platform.
Customers had been asking Symark, which has been primarily focused on the Unix and Linux environments, for a Windows product, John Mutch, CEO of Symark and the new BeyondTrust, said in an interview. The combination of the BeyondTrust product with Symark's products, all managed through Symark's Web-based PowerSeries Management Console, will offer customers efficiency and significant cost-of-ownership, he said.
"Customers want to be able to manage both environments through one console," Mutch said.
The goal is to integrate BeyondTrust's Privilege Manager with the PowerSeries console and offer it before the end of the year, Mutch said. The company also plans to develop a server-based product for Windows environments next year; BeyondTrust's product works primarily on the desktop, he said.
The acquisition is significant because it allows Symark to offer the heterogeneous support customers want, said Perry Carpenter, a research director at Gartner, Inc.
"Most of these [privileged access management] tools have grown up around the Unix and Linux space," he said. "People are playing catch up in the Windows space. Anytime you're playing catch up, an acquisition makes sense."
Others in the privileged account management market include e-DMZ, Cloakware Inc., Cyber-Ark Software, Ltd., Lieberman Software Corp., Passlogix Inc., and Quest Software, Inc.
Experts have said that regulatory compliance requirements combined with heightened security concerns are driving demand for privileged account management technology.
The need to mitigate the insider threat is also a factor in the increased demand, Carpenter said. Companies are looking to control, monitor and audit privileged user access. "It's all about appropriateness of access," he said.
No layoffs will result from the Symark acquisition, executives said. Former BeyondTrust CEO John Moyer is now the executive vice president and general manager of the company's Windows business unit.
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