IBM completes acquisition of Watchfire

25 July 2007

IBM has completed the acquisition of Watchfire Corporation, a privately held security and compliance testing software company based in Waltham, Massachusetts.

IBM had announced the definitive agreement to acquire Watchfire, a leading provider of web application vulnerability assessment and compliance solutions to help customers guard against online security attacks and compliance breaches, on 6 June, 2007.

The acquisition extends the IBM governance and risk management strategy by broadening security and compliance management capabilities in the software development lifecycle. Successfully managing IT governance and risk management as a lifecycle is critical as businesses today are facing increasing globalisation, staggering regulatory complexity and an ever-evolving security threat landscape.

Watchfire helps customers manage web application security and web content quality and compliance to help ensure the business integrity of their online businesses. The combination of Watchfire and IBM will help customers integrate web application security and compliance management early on and throughout the software development process -- effectively allowing them to define, test and track the compliance of their applications with security, legal and corporate guidelines.

"For the past 11 years, Watchfire has provided customers with innovative and effective web application security software to help minimize exposure to personal information, customer records and corporate intellectual property," said Dr Danny Sabbah, general manager, IBM Rational software. "Watchfire technology incorporated into the IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform will help our customers address online security and compliance management requirements early in the software development process -- before their applications go live."