EMC has picked up Aveksa, an identity and access management specialist, through RSA in what one analyst said was a “long overdue” acquisition.
Aveksa will be rolled into RSA as part of RSA’s Identity Trust Management product group. EMC hopes the acquisition will take the best of Aveksa to improve RSA’s portfolio in enterprise, cloud and mobile access.
Knowing you are who you say you are is extra critical in businesses with extremely sensitive data, such as in health and finance. Stuffing that up can and does lead to enormous data breaches, embarrassing the company in front of customers and, worse still, losing customer data.
Aveksa specialises in constructing detailed user profiles as well as managing those identities, keeping security tight and making sure sensitive files reach the right eyes only. It already has plenty of customers in the finance sector, health, energy, retail, manufacturing, transportation and telcos.
Principal Ovum security analyst Andy Kellett said EMC/RSA desperately needed an acquisition of this character if it is to compete in the growing, and dramatically changing, identity management market.
“The disruptive influences of mobility and cloud will change device and infrastructure requirements,” Kellett said. “The requirement for risk-based authentication delivers the requirement for business intelligence and information led access controls – the more sophisticated threat landscape and the need to improve fraud detection rates all add to the need for change”.
Although the financial details of the deal were not disclosed, Ovum asserts that it is a sound buy. “The timing is right as disruptive influences such as cloud take hold of the market,” Kellett said. “The partner is right because of its business focused approach and identity as a service capabilities”.
“Finally, the requirement for RSA to extend out and offer more complete IAM is right and in our opinion long overdue,” Kellett said.
