This article is more than 1 year old

IBM takes a shine to Lighthouse, gobbles bouncer-in-the-cloud biz

If your username's not down, you're not logging in

IBM has acquired upstart Lighthouse Security Group, which lets sysadmins manage user accounts and identities in an off-premises cloud.

Big Blue said the privately held Rhode Island firm will, fittingly, join the IT giant's Security Identity and Access Management group. Lighthouse already bases its Gateway service on IBM's Tivoli enterprise software, so the deal should have minimal impact on customers.

Prior to the acquisition, Lighthouse Security Group operated as a subsidiary of Lighthouse Computer Services. IBM said it will not be announcing terms of the biz gobble, which has already concluded.

"Business models are rapidly evolving as employees conduct more of their work offsite. Protecting this data and who has access to it has become a challenge, costing our clients time and money," IBM Security Services general manager Kris Lovejoy said in a release announcing the acquisition deal.

"With this acquisition, IBM provides a unique identity and access management offering that combines proven software and analytics technology with expert managed services that make it easy for businesses to tackle the complexities of security in this new digital world."

Big Blue said that it plans to tie up the Lighthouse deal with its earlier acquisition of fellow enterprise identity security firm CrossIdeas.

Like Lighthouse, CrossIdeas handles stuff like identity and access management. Big Blue hopes bundling the two firms into its own offerings will help to improve the overall quality of its identity security and management offerings. The deal will also bring back a founding group from Lighthouse, which broke away from IBM Tivoli to launch the security firm in 1995. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like