Security threats Toolkit

Blue Coat bags £10m URL filtering firm

Munir Kotadia ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 19 Jul 2004 14:45 BST

Internet and email security firm Blue Coat Systems agreed on Monday to acquire Ceberian, a URL filtering software developer, for around £10m in stock.

Blue Coat makes security solutions that are designed to help companies protect themselves from internal threats, rather than from external hackers. This includes logging or restricting employee access to restricted information and potentially harmful applications such as Kazaa.

Nigel Hawthorn, marketing director of Blue Coat Europe, said Ceberian's URL software technology will complement Blue Coat's offerings by offering its customers a categorised database of the Internet that makes it far simpler for an administrator to organise Internet access rights.

"Ceberian has a database of over five million Web sites that are divided into categories; this means a company can set up rules and policies that say 'user X can access content in category Y but not during the hours of nine to five. Or, 'They are allowed to access news sites, but only for 15 minutes each day'," Hawthorn said.

An agreement to execute the $17.5m all-stock purchase has been signed and the deal should be completed by the end of September.