back to article Nothing to sniff at: Cisco finishes $2.8bn gobble of Snort'ing guy's Sourcefire

Intrusion prevention's a hot topic in the world of security, as reflected in the $2.8bn price tag Cisco has paid to complete the acquisition of network security specialists Sourcefire. The purchase - which was announced in July - is the largest security firm purchase since Intel's $7.7bn acquisition of McAfee in 2010. And it's …

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  1. Homer 1
    Childcatcher

    Cisco and Security in the same sentence

    Must surely be an oxymoron, especially given their likely conspiracy with the NSA.

    The other bad news is that Roesch also owed the only GPL-licensed antivirus product in existence, ClamAV, which he acquired in 2007, so he's not only sold out himself and his principles, but also two of the most quintessential GNU/Linux security tools (although arguably ClamAV is actually a Windows security tool, that's merely administered by GNU/Linux, since viruses on GNU/Linux are rarer than hen's teeth).

    What is it with these proprietary vendors buying the rights to Free Software. Why on earth would they need to do that, when they can simply use it and even modify it for free like everyone else?

    It's predatory.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cisco and Security in the same sentence

      You are an idiot.

      Cisco have bought Sourcefire. What's predatory about buying a successful company, and giving the owner/creator money for their effort?

      They've not bought the rights to Free Software at all, or changed anything at all about Snort, in any way. You're imagining a problem which simply doesn't exist.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Cisco and Security in the same sentence

        From the FAQs about the acquisition;

        "Q: What are Cisco's plans for Snort?

        A: The open-source standard is widely in use by Fortune 500 companies.

        Snort is one of the many key assets to Sourcefire's product portfolio. Cisco is very committed to open source innovation, including Snort.

        Q: What happens to the existing open source communities?

        A: Cisco is committed to supporting open source communities to help protect users and organizations. There will be no changes to how the communities are managed or community communications. Mailing lists, snort.org, clamav.net and social media properties will remain the same."

        http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac49/ac0/ac1/ac259/sourcefire.html#~faqs

  2. Sir Runcible Spoon

    Sir

    I think I saw an implication in there that the NSA are happy with Cisco because they know they can force them to put in a back door to the IPS' blocking capabilities, but also that Checkpoint could not be relied on to do so when ordered by the NSA...interesting.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cisco = NSA

    Cisco = NSA

    RTP Building 9

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