IBM acquires cybersecurity assurance assets from Spanugo

By Sunniva Kolostyak

IBM has completed a strategic acquisition of Spanugo, US provider of cloud cybersecurity posture management solutions, aiming to integrate the software into its public cloud environment.

The agreement means IBM will integrate California-based Spanugo’s technology into its public cloud and benefit from financial services-ready capabilities and a security management control centre.

The software, which is already cloud-native, provides assurance through automated discovery, assessment, analysis, monitoring and remediation while being auditable, compliant and resilient.

Signing the definitive acquisition agreement is a major step in advancing IBM’s security, compliance and risk management capabilities for enterprise clients, including those in highly regulated industries, Hillery Hunter, CTO of IBM Cloud, said.

In an interview with IBS Intelligence, she said: “Once integrated into IBM public cloud, it will help deliver continuous cybersecurity assurance, as well as compliance and risk management. It will also enable IBM clients to monitor compliance across their organisation in real time.”

Hunter noted that IBM’s teams have been working with companies throughout the COVID-19 crisis: “Across industries, our clients are even more aggressively considering extending their public cloud use and workload migrations, while also deeming the public cloud an essential part of their future IT plans.

“One of the things our clients love about IBM public cloud is that it provides the flexibility to scale up or down to meet clients’ needs, including times like this when they need additional capacity to support periods of heavy application utilisation. Additionally, we’ve prepared to handle the increase in workloads, for example, and proactively scaled up capacity in our public cloud for customers.”

The Spanugo software, which will be incorporated into a suite of capabilities within IBM public cloud services, will be able to demonstrate cybersecurity compliance in real time during an audit. It also delivers a continuous process of cloud security improvement and adaptation to reduce the likelihood of a successful attack.

On top of the Spanugo acquisition, IBM has built significant capabilities around security and compliance in its public cloud and has the only dedicated cloud hardware security module (HSM) in the industry built on FIPS 140-2 Level 4-certified hardware.

“Last year we also introduced the industry’s strongest commercially available cryptographic technology for the cloud called ‘Keep Your Own Key’. This gives enterprises the ability to retain control of their own encryption keys – and the hardware security modules that protect them – so our clients are the only ones who can control access to their data,” Hunter added.

Doc Vaidhyanathan, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Spanugo commented: “Spanugo’s strong domain knowledge and experience in security posture management is a natural complement to IBM’s public cloud offerings.”

“By joining IBM on its mission to be the most secure public cloud for the enterprise, we’re able to deeply serve businesses across industries that require verifiable, audit-ready, real-time cybersecurity posturing.”