Cisco Bolsters Security Services Play with Cybertrust Buy

In a deal valued at $14 million, Cisco plans to purchase assets, intellectual property, customer contracts and other components of Cybertrust&'s Intellishield Alert Manager, a service that provides daily threat and vulnerability alerts to customers.

As part of Cisco&'s Self-Defending Network strategy, the company plans to resell the service through its security-specialized channel partners. Upon close of the transaction, expected by the end of January, the Intellishield Alert Manager team will become part of Cisco&'s Customer Advocacy service organization under the Technical Support Services group led by Senior Vice President Joe Pinto, according to a statement from the San Jose, Calif.-based vendor.

Herndon, Va.-based Cybertrust was formed a year ago via the merger of two security services players, TruSecure and Betrusted Holdings. The company last month named former Hewlett-Packard Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina to its board of directors.

Cisco has made a spate of security-related acquisitions over the past few years, including VPN vendor M.I. Secure earlier this year. Shares of Cisco closed up 3 cents at $17.51 Tuesday prior to the announcement.