Cisco (photo of the CEO John Chambers ©World Economic Forum), a world leader in the field of information technology and in particular the provision of networking products, announced it has reached an agreement for the acquisition of Sourcefire, Inc., a company specializing in network security solutions. Cisco will pay $76 for each Sourcefire share, about 30% more than the value they had at the closing of the American Stock Exchange on Monday. The total value of the acquisition is $2.7 billion.

Sourcefire was founded in 2001 by Martin Roesch, the creator of Snort, a free / open source software for analyzing packets within a network well known in the field of IT security. In March 2007, the company completed an initial public offering. In August 2007, it acquired another famous free / open source project, the Clam antivirus, also known simply as ClamAV.

Sourcefire’s reputation in the security field has grown over the years and the company has also started working with the U.S. government. For this reason, in 2005 an acquisition attempt by the Israeli company Check Point went awry because the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the group of government representatives that has the task to check for any problems in the acquisition of American companies by foreign buyers, went on and on in its investigation until Check Point gave up.

The acquisition of Sourcefire by Cisco definitely brings a strengthening in the security strategies of computer networks. In the press release announcing the acquisition, Cisco refers to new problems connected to mobile devices, cloud and the evolution of what’s called “Internet of things”, progress that however are also creating new security problems.

Sourcefire has produced intrusion detection system (IDS), firewalls and antivirus / antimalware perfect for the Cisco’s needs. In essence, it’s an acquisition definitely expensive but very useful. It’s expected that the deal will be closed in a few months, after inspection by the competent authorities. In the next fiscal year Cisco should experience a decline in earnings but in the long term it should be a really good deal.

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