Facebook announced Thursday it was acquiring PrivateCore, a security startup that focuses on securing remote servers. The company is hoping to protect users from malware and other security threats. Facebook hopes that this acquisition will help to make it’s own systems more secure according to Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan, in this Facebook post. Joe Sullivan wrote “Their vCage technology protects servers from persistent malware, unauthorized physical access, and malicious hardware devices, making it safer to run any application in outsourced, hosted or cloud environments. The team at PrivateCore is also made up of top-notch security veterans with a lot of experience.
I believe that PrivateCore’s technology and expertise will help support Facebook’s mission to help make the world more open and connected, in a secure and trusted way. Over time, we plan to deploy PrivateCore’s technology directly into the Facebook server stack.”
While the financial details are disclosed, but Reuters reports the Palo Alto-based security company raised $2.25 million in funding in 2012.
“Working together with Facebook, there is a huge opportunity to pursue our joint vision at scale with incredible impact,” said PrivateCore CEO Oded Horovitz on their website. “Over time, Facebook plans to deploy our technology into the Facebook stack to help protect the people who use Facebook.”
This acquisition comes in with a wake up call of what US security researchers have called  one of the biggest security breaches in the history of the Internet. A group of Russian hackers reportedly stole more than 1.2 billion passwords and  500 million email addresses according to the firm that conducted the 18-month long investigation that uncovered the breach.
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-Vatsal Doshi
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