McAfee buys DLP vendor Reconnex

The data loss prevention (DLP) market continues to consolidate. McAfee on Thursday said it agreed to acquire privately owned DLP company Reconnex for $46 million in cash. Last year, EMC/RSA acquired Tablus and Symantec acquired Vontu.

Data protection is the top concern for CISOs, “but today’s DLP solutions take too long to deploy and obtain results,” McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt said in a prepared statement. “With the pending acquisition of Reconnex, McAfee expects to redefine the entire data protection market by bringing together a leader in the hottest segment with our comprehensive portfolio of data protection technologies.”

McAfee’s announcement included a statement from Brian Burke, IDC security research analyst, describing Reconnex’s gateway-based technology as complementing McAfee’s host-based data protection technology.

McAfee previously acquired Onigma and SafeBoot and in January repackaged SafeBoot’s endpoint encryption with its DLP products. The Reconnex deal is expected to close in the third quarter.

A recent Forrester report on the DLP market gave high marks to Reconnex for its automated data classification and analysis engine.