Santa Clara-based McAfee will pay $51 million in cash with a possible further $24 million to be paid if certain financial targets are met. The acquisition, which is expected to close in first quarter of 2008, will improve McAfee’s position in web security and help the company to guide its portfolio of 116 million US consumers to safe e-commerce web sites.

McAfee plans to integrate ScanAlert’s technology into its SiteAdvisor service, which alerts Web surfers about the safety of the visited sites with a series of red, yellow, and green lights. McAfee’s SiteAdvisor warns users about risky web sites with ratings such as red for risky sites, yellow for caution, and green for safe. Risky sites are those that deliver malware, contain browser exploits, display aggressive pop-up ads, try to scam a user, provide a poor online shopping experience, or send spam after submitting an e-mail address.

McAfee reported that according to the common vulnerabilities and exposure list, which is sponsored by the national cyber security division of the US Department of Homeland Security, vulnerabilities found in web applications are the most commonly found, surpassing those discovered in Microsoft Windows and desktop software.

ScanAlert audits and certifies the security of more than 75,000 web sites, and protects more than 15 million e-commerce transactions each month. It is the creator of Hacker Safe, a web site security certification. The Hacker Safe security trust mark is displayed by over 60% of the Internet Retailer Top 500 list, including brands such as American Red Cross, GUESS, PETCO, Toshiba, and Warner Brothers.

E-commerce sites certified as Hacker Safe undergo a security audit, which scans the site for vulnerabilities and identifies and verifies security fixes. Hacker Safe certification protects consumers both during and after the submission of personal or financial data to a web site.

Consumers are expected to spend nearly $160 billion this year on products and services online, providing personal credit card information to e-commerce web sites, many of which have traditionally been under-protected, said Dave DeWalt, chief executive officer and president at McAfee. Through this acquisition, we will enhance McAfee’s triple play protection-securing consumers on the PC, web and mobile platforms-by integrating ScanAlert’s e-commerce security certification service into our SiteAdvisor Web rating system.

ScanAlert will be integrated into McAfee’s web security group, co-led by Ken Leonard of ScanAlert and by Tim Dowling, a vice president at McAfee’s consumer, mobile and small business unit. After the integration is completed, Hacker Safe certified sites will be visible through SiteAdvisor, which has been downloaded approximately 90 million times and will be McAfee SiteAdvisor tested. ScanAlert’s projected bookings for 2007 amount to $15 million to $20 million.

McAfee is also launching its own products to enhance its position in the web security market. On 23 October 2007, the company announced a free 30-day virtual machine software trial of the McAfee Secure Internet Gateway appliance. It was designed to help mid-sized businesses evaluate McAfee Secure Internet Gateway, an integrated web and e-mail security appliance that enable businesses to secure their networks from spam, viruses, spyware, and malicious web sites.

To target SMBs, McAfee collaborated with Covad Communications Group in October 2007. This alliance allowed Covad to combine McAfee Total Protection for Small Business services with Covad’s broadband products. McAfee also partnered with Jamcracker to provide communications and IT service providers with on-demand security services for SMBs, in July 2007.

To improve its position as a security vendor, McAfee acquired SafeBoot for $350 million in October 2007. SafeBoot is an enterprise security software vendor. After the integration McAfee plans to add SafeBoot’s technologies and products, which will extend McAfee’s security risk management vision.

Similarly, TriCipher and Wipro partnered to deliver authentication solutions to ecommerce and enterprise Portals. The strategic partnership brings together TriCipher’s approach to online identity, consumer and enterprise portal protection and Wipro’s global services for solutions design, implementation and deployment.

Source: ComputerWire daily updates