Facebook today announced it has acquired encryption startup PrivateCore, which specializes in protecting servers from malware threats, unauthorized physical access, and malicious hardware devices. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
PrivateCore focuses on securing data-in-use on x86 servers with software-based attestation, full-memory encryption, and operating system hardening. Its vCage technology achieves this to protect against threats such as cold boot attacks, hardware advanced persistent threats, rootkits/bootkits, computer hardware supply chain attacks, and physical threats to servers from insiders.
With Facebook, PrivateCore will be able to push the limits of scaling its security software. Facebook says it plans to deploy the technology into the Facebook stack “over time” to help protect its users. With the additional resources of a large tech company, the technology itself will also be developed to be even stronger.
“What makes this development so exciting for us is that Facebook and PrivateCore have an aligned mission,” PrivateCore CEO Oded Horovitz wrote in his announcement of the acquisition. “Facebook has done more than any company to connect the world, and we want to use our secure server technology to help make the world’s connections more secure.”
Facebook’s chief security officer Joe Sullivan also added the following: “I’ve seen how much people care about the security of data they entrust to services like Facebook… believe that PrivateCore’s technology and expertise will help support Facebook’s mission to help make the world more open and connected, in a secure and trusted way.”
Based in Palo Alto, PrivateCore was founded in 2012 by security veterans from VMware and Google. It received seed funding from Foundation Capital.
See also – Facebook paid 330 security researchers $1.5M in 2013; adds Instagram, Parse, Atlas, Onavo to Bug Bounty program and Microsoft and Facebook sponsor Internet Bug Bounty program, offer cash for hacking the Internet stack
Top Image Credit: Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images
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