IBM Closes on Acquisition of Q1 Labs
IBM recently announced that it has completed the acquisition of Q1 Labs Inc., a privately-held company based in Waltham, Mass. On Oct. 4, IBM announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Q1 Labs, which provides advanced analytics to detect and flag suspicious or abnormal events. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Following the acquisition closing, Q1 Labs CEO Brendan Hannigan will assume the role of general manager of IBM's newly formed Security Systems Division.
"The ability to leverage analytics is becoming a competitive differentiator," said Brendan Hannigan, general manager, IBM Security Systems. "We're fusing together IBM's vast security expertise and analytics to drive security intelligence to clients and fundamentally alter the security marketplace."
The recent IBM X-Force Mid-Year Trend and Risk Report highlights the rapidly changing security landscape. To combat an increase in high-profile attacks, growing mobile vulnerabilities and more sophisticated threats, firms must be equipped to quickly identify threats, detect insider fraud, predict business risk and address regulatory mandates.
Q1 Labs' advanced analytics and correlation capabilities can help detect and flag actions that deviate from prescribed policies and typical behavior with a view across an organization's network, applications, user activity, mobile endpoints, and physical security devices — including both cloud-based and on-premise sources.
Q1 Labs will join the newly formed Security Systems division, which integrates IBM's Tivoli, Rational and Information Management security software, appliances, lab offerings and services. The new division will target a $94 billion opportunity in security software and services, which has a nearly 12 percent compound annual growth rate, according to IBM estimates. Q1 Labs will join the more than 10 strategic security acquisitions IBM has made in the last decade and the more than 25 analytics-related purchases.
IBM operates the world’s broadest security R&D organization with dozens of labs across the globe, and thousands of security experts. IBM monitors 12 billion security events per day in more than 130 countries.