IBM is announcing the acquisition of Q1 Labs, Massachusetts-based provider of security intelligence software. Financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close in fourth quarter, were not disclosed.
Q1 Labs software collects and analyzes information from hundreds of sources across an organization such as the network, applications, user activity, mobile endpoints, and physical security devices such as badge readers — including both cloud-based and on-premise sources.
Q1’s network security software, QRadar, include log, threat, and compliance management solutions; as well as Flow and Event Processors for processing network and security events, and network and application flow data. Q1 Labs analytics and correlation capabilities can automatically detect and flag actions across an enterprise that deviate from prescribed policies and typical behavior to help prevent breaches, such as an employee accessing unauthorized information.
The company has 1,800 clients and serves various industries, including publicly traded companies; financial institutions; retail organizations; healthcare institutions; utility, manufacturing, and transportation companies; educational institutions; and federal, state, and local government agencies. Q1 Labs also has strategic partnership with Juniper Networks; Enterasys; Nortel; McAfee; Foundry Networks, and 3Com.
IBM says the acquisition will help its clients more intelligently secure their enterprises by applying analytics to connect information from key security domains and creating security dashboards for their organizations. IBM also plans to apply Q1 Labs’ analytics to drive greater security intelligence capabilities across its security products and services such as identity and access management, database security, application security, enterprise risk management, intrusion prevention, endpoint management and network security.
Q1 Labs, which has raised $29 million in funding, will actually join the newly-formed IBM Security Systems division, which will be led by Brendan Hannigan, CEO of Q1 Labs. For Big Blue, network security and services is a $94 billion opportunity.
Q1 Labs will join more than 10 strategic security acquisitions IBM has made in the last ten years and the more than 25 analytics-related purchases, including the recently announced acquisition of security analytics software firm, i2. IBM says it currently monitors 12 billion security events per day in more than 130 countries and holds 3,000 security patents.
Big Blue’s recent acquisitions include Algorithmics, and I2.