Yesterday at the RSA Conference, IBM has officially confirmed what’s already been a rumor for some time – the company is planning to acquire Resilient Systems for an undisclosed amount.
Resilient Systems, a relatively small privately held company based in Cambridge, MA, is well known for its Incident Response Platform, a leading solution for orchestrating and automating incident response processes. With the number of security breaches steadily growing, the focus within IT security industry is currently shifting more and more from detection and prevention towards managing the consequences of an attack that’s already happened. Such an incident response solution can provide a company with a predefined strategy for responding to various types of attacks, tailored to specific laws and industry regulations. It would then support the IT department at every step of the process, helping to get the affected infrastructure back online, address privacy concerns, solve organizational and legal issues and so on.
Despite being on the market for less than 5 years, Resilient Systems has already become a leading player in this segment, with their IRP solution being used by a variety of clients in all verticals, from mid-size businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Among other features, the product is known for its integration with multiple leading security solutions. In fact, Resilient Systems has been IBM’s partner for some time, integrating their product with IBM’s QRadar.
So, in the hindsight, the announcement doesn’t really come as a big surprise. For IBM Security, this acquisition means not just incorporating a leading incident response solution into their cyber security portfolio, but also hiring a 100 men strong team of security experts including the venerable Bruce Schneier, who’s currently serving as the Resilient Systems’ CTO. What’s in the deal for Resilient Systems is not as easy to say, since the financial details of the deal are not disclosed, but we can definitely be sure that gaining access to IBM’s vast partner network opens a lot of interesting business prospects.
By adding the new Incident Response capabilities to their existing QRadar security intelligence solution and X-Force Exchange threat intelligence platform, IBM is hoping to become the world’s first vendor with a fully integrated platform for security operations and response. In the same press release, the company has already announced their new IBM X-Force Incident Response Services.