Secure Computing
| Secure Computing Corporation
|
|
|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1984 |
| resolution | 2008 |
| Reason for dissolution | fusion |
| Seat | San Jose (California) , United States |
| management | Daniel Philip Ryan, President, Chairman of the Board and CEO |
| Number of employees | 885 (December 2006) |
| sales | $ 237.9 million (2007) $ 176.97 million (December 2006) |
| Branch | Security software |
| Website | securecomputing.com |
The Secure Computing Corporation was a US company based in San José (California) that mainly produced and sold software solutions for the security of IT systems. Well-known products of the company were the Webwasher Webgateway , the URL filter Smartfilter and the Sidewinder firewalls . The company also played a key role in the development of SELinux .
history
1984 was founded in Minneapolis , Minnesota by Honeywell Corp. the Secure Computing Technology Center SCTC group was founded. The main task of SCTC was the programming of an operating system for NASA , which should be the first operating system to meet the A1 level criteria of the Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC).
In 1989 the STSC project was spun off as an offshoot into the independent company "Secure Computing Technology Corporation". The background to this was the failed attempt to sell STSC and Bull SA in France. Since the project was working on research contracts from the government, continued operation under foreign owners was not possible or the government did not want it. The government organizations, mainly NASA, were dependent on the project to continue. After a few years the addition "Technology" was dropped from the name and the name "Secure Computing Corporation" remained. In 1995 Secure Computing was converted into a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ , the shares were traded under the symbol SCUR.
The company's headquarters were relocated to San José, California in 1998. After relocating in 2006, the largest branch and technical headquarters were in St. Paul (Minnesota) . Secure Computing had grown since 2007 through acquisitions of other security software manufacturers.
In August 2008, Secure Computing sold all of the Safeword technology to Alladin Knowledge Systems.
On September 22, 2008, McAfee Inc. announced that it would purchase Secure Computing by the end of 2008. This takeover was completed on November 18, 2008.
Until mid-2010, the former company continued to operate as an independent division under the name “Network Security Business Unit” within “McAfee Inc.”. Since July 2010, the products of Secure Computing within McAfee have been divided into other business areas and operate in new structures.
Products
The company's product range was largely designed for the gateway area and concentrated on the components required for network and Internet access:
- Firewalls: Sidewinder, TSP, Snapgear - summarized in the Secure Firewall product area
- Webfilter: Smartfilter , Webwasher - summarized in the Secure Web product area
- Messaging filter : IronMail - Secure Mail product area
In addition, the company also offered its customers advisory services.
One component that can be found in almost all products is TrustedSource. Behind this is a reputation-based real-time feedback system in order to be able to block dangerous IPs, URLs, spam e-mails etc. without delay.
Acquisitions
During its history, the company has repeatedly integrated the technologies of other companies into its product portfolio through company takeovers or the takeover of separate product lines.
- 1995–1996, acquisition of the technologies for SafeWord Authentication and SmartFilter URL filtering
- February 2002, acquisition of the Gauntlet Firewall from NAI
- August 2002, takeover of the German control list to expand the web filter solutions SmartFilter from Siemens
- October 2003, takeover of N2H2, provider of the Bess URL filter, with a product specially tailored for schools
- January 2006, takeover of Cyberguard Corp. and Webwasher AG (as a 100% subsidiary of Cyberguard)
- August 2006, Secure Computing takes over CipherTrust
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Annual Report, Form-10k (SEC)) for 2006, on corporate-ir.net (PDF; 2.1 MB) , accessed on April 24, 2008.
- ^ Company Fact Sheet, from corporate-ir.net (PDF) , accessed on April 7, 2008