The Internet is all a flutter today with the news that Third Brigade, an Ottawa based network antivirus and Internet content security software and services company, has quietly been acquired by Japan based Trend Micro Inc. The Trend press release states that they are buying the business to “accelerate its dynamic data center security strategy, and to provide customers with access to critical security and compliance software and vulnerability response services.”

Since 2007, Third Brigade has licensed its technology to Trend Micro as part of their OEM relationship, resulting in products such as the Intrusion Defense Firewall (IDF) plug-in for OfficeScan™. This relationship inevitably paved the way for the Trend Micro acquisition. Trend Micro has plans to grow the Third Brigade business within its own data center security business.

This marks an interesting turn for Third Brigade who, in June 2008, was on the other side of the acquisition table when they picked up the OSSEC project. What does this purchase mean for users of the Open Source OSSEC HIDS? According to the press release on the OSSEC website they don’t anticipate there will be any impact on OSSEC users from this acquisition. The release states “like Third Brigade, Trend will help create broader awareness and further ensure the success of this thriving open source community through ongoing dedicated resources and extended support necessary for larger enterprise deployments.”

The Trend Micro Press release can be found here: http://trendmicro.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=714
The Third Brigade press release can be found here: http://www.thirdbrigade.com/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=948
The OSSEC press release can be found here: http://www.ossec.net/main/trend-micro-to-acquire-third-brigade