Thoma Bravo’s Blue Coat buys Norman Shark

Blue Coat Systems, a portfolio company of Thoma Bravo, said Wednesday that it has acquired Norman Shark. No financial terms were disclosed. Based in San Diego and Norway, Norman Shark is a provider of malware analysis solutions.

PRESS RELEASE

SUNNYVALE, Calif., December 18, 2013– Blue Coat Systems, Inc., the market leader in business assurance technology, today announced it has acquired Norman Shark, the global leader in malware analysis solutions for enterprise, service providers and government. The acquisition unites the industry’s most proven zero-day sandboxing technology with Blue Coat’s leading Advanced Threat Protection solution to help customers bridge the gap between identification of advanced persistent threats and resolution of those threats.
“The Norman Shark malware analysis and sandboxing technology represents the most mature and proven in the industry with the ability to scale to support enterprise requirements,” said Greg Clark, CEO of Blue Coat Systems. “Integration of the Norman Shark technology with the Blue Coat Content Analysis System and Security Analytics Platform delivers a solution that protects against zero-day threats before, during and after an attack by detecting, analyzing, blocking, resolving and fortifying the network against unknown and latent threats.”
Norman Shark’s IntelliVM and SandBox technologies provide advanced security teams the ability to analyze any threat type, in any version of any application they choose. This allows security teams to gather intelligence on malware targeting their specific environment and application vulnerabilities in order to more effectively contain and resolve the incident. Blue Coat has already integrated the Norman Shark technology into its Malware Analysis Appliance to deliver the industry’s most robust sandboxing capability.
“Blue Coat’s acquisition of Norman Shark is a great addition to the company’s advanced malware prevention, detection, and analytics capabilities,” said Jon Oltsik, senior principal analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. “The market is growing very quickly, and ESG believes that enterprises need strong integrated solutions to identify, contain and resolve advanced persistent threats in a more automated way.”
Unlike point solutions, the new Blue Coat Advanced Threat Protection solution, which integrates the Norman Shark malware analysis technology, provides a lifecycle defense that fortifies the network against unknown and latent threats. The combined advanced threat protection technologies improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the blue Coat Global Intelligence Network’s ability to dynamically protect all Blue Coat customers.
“Our team is a trusted provider to some of the largest, most demanding companies in the world and earned that position with a commitment to excellence in technology,” said Stein Surlien, CEO of Norman Shark. “The power of our sandboxing technology combined with Blue Coat’s gateway security and security analytics gives enterprises unmatched advanced persistent threat detection, root-cause analysis and resolution.”
As part of its commitment to securely empowering businesses, Blue Coat continues to execute on its strategy of acquiring strategically important, best-of-breed technologies to deliver Business Assurance Technology solutions. The Norman Shark acquisition complements earlier acquisitions of Solera Networks and SSL technology from Netronome to provide customers with the industry’s only lifecycle defense against advanced persistent threats.
About Blue Coat Systems
Blue Coat empowers enterprises to safely and quickly choose the best applications, services, devices, data sources, and content the world has to offer, so they can create, communicate, collaborate, innovate, execute, compete and win in their markets. For additional information, please visit www.bluecoat.com.