The next-gen endpoint security company Invincea has been acquired by Sophos, with the firm’s security solutions now incorporated into the Sophos family.
Sophos already has an extensive range of products, although there is always room for more. Dan Schiappa, Senior VP and General Manager of Enduser Security & Network Security Groups at Sophos, likened the acquisition to the Avengers, saying “It’s great to have a group of heroes around to defend the world. But it’s much better to add another hero to the ensemble.” In the case of Invincea, Sophos has gained machine learning, which will be incorporated into other Sophos cybersecurity solutions.
Invincea was founded in 2009 by Dr. Anup Ghosh with the aim of addressing the threat from advanced attackers that use zero-day exploits to target businesses, governments and critical infrastructure. Rather than use signature-based technology to identify threats, Invincea uses a neural network-based approach with machine learning at its core. The solution uses algorithms first developed by scientists working on the DARPA Cyber Genome project.
Invincea has been shown to detect and block threats that are not recognized by signature-based cybersecurity solutions and the solution has already been adopted by many organizations that are being targeted by advanced cybercriminals groups.
Sophos has been moving aware from signature-based detection to new technologies to ensure the latest threats are detected. The company uses technologies such as emulation, malicious traffic detection, behavioral detections and security heartbeat, which has helped the firm keep malware detections high. Invincea is seen as a perfect fit for the Sophos family.
Invincea will be offered to organizations through Sophos Central and will be an important element of the firm’s Synchronized Security strategy, which sees products talk to each other and share actionable intelligence. When Invincea detects a new threat, the information will be passed to products such as the Sophos XG Firewall and SGN Encryption, providing an additional level of protection to Sophos customers.