Symantec buys PGP and GuardianEdge

Symantec made a bold move in the mergers and acquisitions space today with the purchase of privately held encryption firms PGP and GuardianEdge for a total of US$370m ($398m) in cash.

The security giant said that the two companies' standards-based encryption capabilities for full-disk, removable media, email, file, folder and smartphone, will perfectly complement its own endpoint security and data loss prevention tools.

Symantec added that the acquisitions would help expand its market opportunity in the fast growing encryption space.

"With these acquisitions we can further protect information by using encryption in an intelligent and policy-driven way to give the right users access to the right information, enabling the trust that individuals and organisations need to operate confidently in an information-driven world," said Francis deSouza, senior vice president of Symantec's Enterprise Security Group.

"We are now able to offer the industry's most comprehensive solution across encryption and data loss prevention for protecting confidential data on endpoints, networks, storage systems and in the cloud."

Reacting to the news on his Twitter feed, Quocirca analyst Clive Longbottom argued that PGP and GuardianEdge "should be a good fit" with Symantec, as well as extending the security giant's portfolio.

Symantec will pay US$300m ($323m) for PGP and $70m ($75m) for GuardianEdge under the terms of the deal.