EMC Acquires NetWitness For Network Security Monitoring
The deal officially closed April 1, and NetWitness is now operating as part of EMC’s RSA security division.
According to EMC, NetWitness will serve as a “core element” of RSA’s Advanced Security Management Solutions, providing real-time visibility into network activity and adding efficiency to incident investigations and workflow. This means combining NetWitness’ network monitoring and analysis technology with RSA’s enVision platform, RSA Data Loss Prevention Suite (DLP), RSA CyberCrime Intelligence service and the RSA Archer eGRC platform to provide business context to security information and help organizations achieve better insight into their security posture.
“The intensity and sophistication of advanced adversaries and zero day malware challenge every organization to rethink traditional approaches to network security,” said Tom Heiser, president of the RSA security division, in a statement. “NetWitness has redefined the security landscape, providing a powerful solution for organizations seeking to gain immediate insight, precise clarity, and timely closure in the face of the toughest cyber threats. NetWitness’ unique network security analysis capabilities extend RSA’s solutions for managing security risk and compliance across both physical and virtual environments.”
With NetWitness, RSA gains a well-reputed security analysis and visualization platform that has become popular with investigative security professionals, blogged Scott Crawford, managing research director of Enterprise Management Associate’s Security and Risk Management practice.
“The alignment with RSA’s enVision products for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) as well as its more recent acquisition of Archer Technologies should be immediately apparent,” he wrote. “Less obvious, however, may be the opportunity for NetWitness to take advantage of EMC’s Greenplum acquisition for data warehousing. Security analysis platforms such as NetWitness collect and record significant amounts of fundamental data directly from infrastructure. This volume of raw data collected “off the wire” can require substantial resources for data management.”
“Greenplum’s support for performance may also be engaged to optimize NetWitness security analytics or data fusion with enVision, Archer, or other resources (such as the family of IT management assets shared between EMC, RSA and VMware), particularly when analysis targets larger data sets,” he added.
EMC and NetWitness share a complementary vision for the future of security management, work with the same types of industry-leading customers, and have a respect for each other’s cultures of innovation and growth, said Amit Yoran, CEO of NetWitness, in a statement.
“Joining RSA is a strategic move that will deliver significant benefit for NetWitness customers, partners and employees,” he said. “EMC has a tremendous record of bringing together smart people and hot technologies and continuing to invest in them to further accelerate growth and achieve their full market potential. Together, we have an opportunity to further strengthen our leadership position in network security analysis by creating new, integrated products and capabilities to solve our customers’ most complex security challenges.”