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HPE acquires Niara for machine-learning network security

HPE makes its third acquisition in 15 days

HPE has made its third acquisition in 15 days by buying Niara, a self-styled "user and entity behaviour analytics" security software company.

In plain English, the software analyses network activity to identify potentially malicious behaviour, and already integrates with HPE's own Aruba ClearPass networking security software and services portfolio.

Keerti Melkote, senior vice president and general manager of HPE Aruba, claimed that the technology would enable HPE to continue innovating "at the intelligent edge" with "software-defined solutions to better protect our customers' business and IoT [Internet of Things] data".

He continued: "With over 20 billion IoT devices expected to be connected to networks by 2020, security is the number one concern for our customers. Combining Niara's next-generation behaviour analytics software with Aruba's ClearPass network security portfolio will deliver the industry's most complete visibility and attack detection system."

Terms of the deal, including price, have not been disclosed.

User and entity behaviour analytics (UEBA) is a new category of security technology intended to identify what HPE calls "next-generation security threats that have penetrated traditional firewalls and other perimeter systems".

Analyst group Gartner claims that it "offers profiling and anomaly detection based on a range of analytics approaches, usually using a combination of basic analytics methods and advanced analytics…

"Examples of these activities include unusual access to systems and data by trusted insiders or third parties, and breaches by external attackers evading preventative security controls".

For Niara co-founders Sriram Ramachandran, CEO, and Prasad Palkar, vice president of engineering, the deal will mean a return to Aruba, albeit as markedly wealthier men, along with their team of engineers.

"This team developed the core technologies in the current ArubaOS operating system, including authentication, encryption, deep-packet inspection and more," wrote Melkote in a blog post.

He continued: "As a result, the Niara team is very familiar with our customers' networks and have designed their next-gen security solution to augment these capabilities in order to create a better-together combination.

While the deal represents the third acquisition by HPE in little over two weeks, it hasn't all been one-way traffic, with HPE also offloading a number of software assets to Micro Focus in September in order to re-focus.

HPE acquires Niara for machine-learning network security

HPE makes its third acquisition in 15 days

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