Digital Guardian Acquires Code Green In Bid To Become One-Stop-Shop For Data Loss Prevention

Digital Guardian expanded its endpoint data loss prevention business to the network, cloud and mobile devices with the Tuesday acquisition of Code Green Networks.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Digital Guardian, Waltham, Mass., provides an agent-based DLP solution to protect data on the endpoint. The company protects 52 million terabytes of data across more than 2 million agents deployed globally.

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The acquisition of Code Green extends those DLP capabilities to the network, cloud and mobile devices with its TrueDLP line of solutions, including Network DLP, Discovery DLP and Cloud DLP. That combination of capabilities, which are available today and ultimately will be fully integrated into the Digital Guardian portfolio, will be a competitive differentiator for the company as it looks to lead the market for data loss prevention technologies, said Digital Guardian President and CEO Ken Levine.

"I think this gives us a big competitive advantage," Levine said. "Other than Symantec and maybe a couple of others to some degree, there aren’t a lot of vendors that have put all these pieces together. ... We think that with us and the integration strateg,y we have the ability to provide an end-to-end and, as we call it, 'ubiquitous' data protection. You’ve got the best of all worlds."

Levine said Digital Guardian was drawn to Code Green in particular because of its easy-to-implement product, which was recognized in the last Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content-Aware Data Loss prevention. The company also was an appropriate size for an acquisition with approximately 30 employees, Levine said.

"I think it was right place, right now, right size," Levine said.

Levine said all Code Green employees will be brought over in the acquisition. Digital Guardian will keep Code Green's Sunnyvale, Calif.-based office open and it will now be overseen by Digital Guardian Chief Strategy Officer Douglas Bailey. Code Green will continue its product development and road map, adding an integration team charged with bringing the two company's strategies together, with a goal of full product integration by next spring or summer.

The timing of the acquisition comes as the security industry pivots toward a focus on data loss prevention, realizing that perimeter defenses are not enough to stop the deluge of data breaches hitting businesses today, Levine said.

"I think that the whole market, the whole industry, is really gearing up around the message that data protection is what you have to do," Levine said.

"What we're seeing is the acknowledgement that the target is data, the acknowledgement that prevention -- while critical -- isn’t enough," Levine continued. "We're seeing a really, really big uptick in DLP products. I think that that’s the drive. It doesn’t mean that you don’t keep trying to install threat prevention, but what it does say is that by itself it's just not enough anymore."

Solution providers are seeing the same trend toward DLP solutions.

"Due to mobile and cloud computing, today’s data is constantly in motion and exists in a borderless environment. It’s critical to offer a unified data security solution that protects data at each level of the corporate infrastructure while enabling business," John Marler, chief operating officer at Houston-based Set Solutions, said in an email to CRN.

Marler said the acquisition is a "strategic move" by Digital Guardian, allowing partners to tackle the emerging DLP market with a "comprehensive data protection" offering.

"We're confident that it will have a strong, positive impact on the channel," Marler said.

Digital Guardian will roll the Code Green solutions into its partner program, as Code Green currently is a direct-only company. Current customers will be slowly transferred over to Digital Guardian partners.

PUBLISHED OCT. 7, 2015