Facebook Tightens Security With PrivateCore Purchase

Facebook is set to tighten up the security of the server estate inside its data centres, after announcing the intent to purchase a California-based startup PrivateCore, which was founded by former Google and VMware employees.

The social networking giant did not disclose financial terms of the acquisition.

Data Centre Security

PrivateCore specialises in secure server technologies, namely malware protection and encryption. The company says it makes technology that helps protect servers against malware and other threats.

“What makes this development so exciting for us is that Facebook and PrivateCore have an aligned mission,” said Oded Horovitz, CEO at PrivateCore. “Facebook has done more than any company to connect the world, and we want to use our secure server technology to help make the world’s connections more secure.”

“Working together with Facebook, there is a huge opportunity to pursue our joint vision at scale with incredible impact. Over time, Facebook plans to deploy our technology into the Facebook stack to help protect the people who use Facebook,” he added.

Safeguarding Data

“I’ve seen how much people care about the security of data they entrust to services like Facebook,” wrote Facebook’s chief security officer, Joe Sullivan in a Facebook post. “We finished implementing HTTPS encryption by default over a year ago, and have also been working to secure all data center traffic with additional protections.”

“In that vein, I’m really excited that Facebook has entered into an agreement to acquire PrivateCore,” wrote Sullivan. “Their vCage technology protects servers from persistent malware, unauthorized physical access, and malicious hardware devices, making it safer to run any application in outsourced, hosted or cloud environments. The team at PrivateCore is also made up of top-notch security veterans with a lot of experience.”

Earlier this week Mozilla admitted a serious “disclosure” of developer details, including their passwords and email addresses.

Meanwhile it has been reported that a cyber criminal gang believed to be based in central Russia has amassed more than 1.2 billion unique user name and password combinations from thousands of websites – the largest collection of stolen credentials ever discovered.

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