Oracle acquires Secerno

Furthering its shopping spree and its bid to strengthen its presence in technology security, global software player Oracle has acquired Secerno.

Secerno, with offices in Oxford, UK and New York, is a leader in data security. The company offers database activity monitoring, real-time data protection, data auditing and compliance solutions. Secerno’s key offering to customers is the ability to nip security threats in the bud; stopping database threats before data is lost or compromised. This pre-emptive approach has won the company plaudits in the past.

Andrew Mendelsohn, senior vice president of Oracle Database Server Technologies, said that "the Secerno acquisition is in direct response to increasing customer challenges around mitigating database security risk.”

He added: "Secerno's database firewall product acts as a first line of defence against external threats and unauthorised internal access, with a protective perimeter around Oracle and non-Oracle databases."

In a separate statement, an Oracle spokesperson said that Secerno’s products will augment Oracle’s portfolio of database security solutions such as Oracle Advanced Security, Oracle Database Vault and Oracle Audit Vault to further ensure data privacy, protect against threats, and enable regulatory compliance.

As of yet, no financial terms of the deal have emerged, but the deal is expected to be done and dusted by the end of June this year.

It is widely anticipated that this new acquisition will mean that Oracle is better placed to compete in the security sector, and in fact, many commentators see the new acquisition as Oracle rising to the challenge IBM made when it bought Guardium in December 2009.

IBM’s acquisition of Guardium, the Massachusetts-based database security firm, indicated IBM’s plans to use Guardium’s software tools for managing database access within its Information Management Software and its Business Analytics and Optimisation Consulting platform.