Symantec celebrates success with $355m spree

NEWS Security firm Symantec has gone on an acquisition spree following strong first quarter results. The anti-virus specialist is to buy three other security companies - Recourse, Riptech and SecurityFocus - for a total of $355m, having reported profit of $56.6m for the quarter ended 30 June. This compares to a loss of $21.2m for the comparable quarter last year. Revenues were up almost 40 per cent to $316m. Symantec will pay $135m in cash for Recourse, and integrate its ManHunt intrusion detection system with its own Intruder Alert and ManTrap products. Riptech will set Symantec back a further $145m. In return the California-based company will gain an extra 500 corporate clients in 30 countries worldwide. Riptech offers security consulting and network monitoring. The final leg of the spending spree will see Symantec seal a deal for SecurityFocus which runs a database of known threats and provides an alert system via its BugTraq mailing list.