Websense announces deal to buy PortAuthority

Websense announced an agreement today to acquire start-up PortAuthority Technologies, a maker of data-leak prevention equipment, for about $90 million.

Websense, which provides a line of content-filtering and security-protection products, had been working under a codevelopment agreement with PortAuthority to integrate PortAuthority’s PreciseID data fingerprinting technology into Websense’s own ThreatSeek engine, which detects malicious content. The deal announced today cements the relationship, with PortAuthority’s 60 employees, based primarily in Palo Alto and Ra’anana, Israel, expected to join Websense after the merger is completed.

"During the process of the partnering and after doing some validation, we saw a more complete synergy than we had anticipated," said Devin Redmond, director of the security products group at Websense about the deal to acquire privately held PortAuthority. He added it's expected to merger between the two firms will be completed by the first quarter of next year.

At that point, he added, Websense will have more to announce about a specific roadmap related to both its own line of content-management products and the PortAuthority appliance which can monitor content to determine unauthorized transmission of sensitive data.