McAfee recently announced this May that they have acquired whitelisting software company Solidcore for $33 million.  There is an additional $14 million in the deal should Solidcore achieve set performance goals.

For the past years, McAfee has been aggressively building up its security software portfolio through the acquisition of different software security firms.  To be exact, McAfee has in its list of past acquisitions Citadel Security, Preventsys, and Foundstone.  And now the company adds Solidcore to the list.

What this acquisition does to McAfee's products and services

Through this acquisition, McAfee further widened it security offerings to customers by including the whitelisting technology of Solidcore.  Whitelisting works by filtering unsigned sites and web application as a way to combat worms, viruses and other forms of malware.  With this approach, any software that is not within the whitelist will not be allowed to run in the system.  This adds more security as sites and applications are already pre-scanned before being allowed access.  Now, there is an added level of protection from the server level as only allowed sites are given access to a system.  And to manage issues about blocking access to legitimate software, Solidcore also has a host of tools and applications to manage the security levels and exemptions to the filtering.  McAfee considers this addition of this pre-approved software security protection as a great complement to McAfee’s current suite of security software products and applications.

Solidcore’s reach, aside from providing web security, also involves information security services for ATM, cash registers, and other retail market systems.  As proof of the reliability of the company, Solidcore’s technology is used in more than 100 financial institutions and 15,000 retail stores, according to McAfee estimates.

McAfee is getting Solidcore at its prime; doubling its profits from 2008 and posting solid earnings for the first quarter of 2009.  As the need for security in data and security system is always present, the future looks bright for the acquisition, both for McAfee and Solidcore.

And with the acquisition of Solidcore’s existing market, McAfee has also spread its influence on cash registers, ATMs and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems.  Aside from solidifying its own software suite, the acquisition also opened up other markets for McAfee’s services.

The buyout will reach its completion in the second quarter of 2009.  McAfee also expects to have lowered share values because of the acquisition, but expects things to pick up once the integration is complete and all the new service preparations are finished.