IBM acquires application security specialists

Jake Widman
Wednesday, 29 July 2009 04:59

IT Industry - Strategy

IBM announced that is has acquired Ounce Labs, which makes software to scan source code for security and compliance vulnerabilities. According to the announcement, relying on information from The National Institute of Standards and Technology, finding and fixing defects account for 80 percent of application development costs.

Furthermore, compliance and security demands are growing and becoming more complex.

IBM plans to incorporate the Ounce Labs technology into its Rational Software development platform, and the announcement quotes Daniel Sabbah, Rational Software's general manager: "The complexity of today's systems and the sophistication of attacks require comprehensive technology.

"The acquisition of Ounce Labs allows IBM to provide customers an end-to-end application security testing solution for managing security and compliance across all stages of the software delivery process."

And in a note on the Rational site, Sabbah also writes, "Combining Ounce Labs’ source code security testing with our Web application (dynamic) security scanning provides a comprehensive solution for organizations concerned about correcting security vulnerabilities in applications before they go live"

Neither company disclosed the terms of the acquisition.