Blue Coat Buys Norwegian Sandboxing Experts Norman Shark

US business assurance technology vendor Blue Coat Systems has acquired Norwegian security company Norman Shark. wich specialises in research and malware analysis.

One of the most interesting services it offers is ‘zero-day sandboxing’ – a secure virtual environment in which IT teams can analyse any threat type, in any version of any application. Blue Coat had previously integrated the Norman Shark sandboxing technology into its Malware Analysis Appliance, and malware analysis algorithms into the Advanced Threat Protection solution.

Talent acquisition

“Our team is a trusted provider to some of the largest, most demanding companies in the world and earned that position with a commitment to excellence in technology,” said Stein Surlien, CEO of Norman Shark. “The power of our sandboxing technology combined with Blue Coat’s gateway security and security analytics gives enterprises unmatched advanced persistent threat detection, root-cause analysis and resolution.”

The exact terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Norman Shark was spun off from the established security software developer Norman in early 2013. The company maintains a clear focus on analytics and threat discovery, and primarily deals with large enterprise customers, while Norman Safeground – the other half of what used to be Norman – sells software to consumers and SMEs.

Blue Coat hopes the acquisition will help it bridge the gap between identification of advanced persistent threats and resolution of those threats.

“We have a long history of high performance web traffic processing, and by combining the industry’s most proven sandboxing technology in-line with our market leading secure web gateway, we are removing an obstacle enterprises have faced up to now,” said Greg Clark, CEO of Blue Coat Systems.

“Integration of the Norman Shark technology with the Blue Coat Content Analysis System and Security Analytics Platform delivers a solution that protects against zero-day threats before, during and after an attack by detecting, analyzing, blocking, resolving and fortifying the network against unknown and latent threats.”

The Norman Shark deal complements Blue Coat’s acquisitions of Solera Networks and SSL technology from Netronome, both in May 2013.

Earlier this year, Blue Coat kit was illegally sold to the Syrian government and used for Internet surveillance, but the blame had fallen on a Dubai-based channel partner that was ordered to pay a $2.8 million fine. It is believed Blue Coat had no knowledge of the transaction.

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