McAfee (News - Alert), Inc. has announced a definitive agreement to acquire the privately-held ScanAlert, Inc., creators of the fast-growing HACKER SAFE Web site security certification service. The company will buy the HACKER SAFE for approximately $51 million in cash up front. Also, if the performance targets are met, the company will pay an earn-out of up to an additional $24 million. This acquisition is expected to help more than 116 million U.S. consumers of McAfee, who shop online for safe e-commerce Web sites. ScanAlert will be integrated into McAfee’s Web Security Group, co-led by Ken Leonard of ScanAlert and by Tim Dowling, a vice president under McAfee’s consumer, mobile and small business unit, which is headed up by Senior Vice President and General Manager Todd Gebhart.

 

The acquisition is expected to close in Q1 2008 pending satisfaction of customary closing conditions, and as such, there will be no impact on expected fourth quarter 2007 results.

 

For years, HACKER SAFE has been identifying and certifying e-commerce sites after a comprehensive security audit, which scans the site for vulnerabilities and identifies and verifies security fixes. If a site has HACKER SAFE certification, this simply means that consumers will be protected both during and after the submission of personal or financial data to a Web site. Also, sites need to maintain their HACKER SAFE certification every day by passing daily scans by ScanAlert. The site qualifies for certification only after the scan is completed and any detected security issues are fixed.

 

Ken Leonard, chief executive officer of ScanAlert said in a company press release, “ScanAlert pioneered vulnerability assessment and certification for e-commerce sites to help eliminate one of the greatest risks to consumers’ financial information. By becoming part of McAfee, we believe ScanAlert can extend Web certification to the next level, greatly benefiting consumers and the businesses who serve them.”

 

The patent-pending technology of ScanAlert protects more than 15 million e-commerce transactions each month and the company audits and certifies the security of 8,000 customers representing more than 75,000 Web sites. The HACKER SAFE security trust mark is fast gaining recognition is displayed by over 60% of the Internet Retailer Top 500 list. Some well known sites that display the mark include, American Red Cross, GUESS, PETCO, Toshiba (News - Alert) and Warner Brothers.