Symantec buys PGP and GuardianEdge

Pretty good crypto deals

Symantec is to buy cryptography pioneer PGP Corp for $300 million and GuardianEdge Technologies for $70 million to help build up its security management portfolio.

The all-cash deals will see the company bake PGP into its Symantec Protection Center system and standardise on its key management platform.

PGP, for Pretty Good Privacy, is a popular public-key based encryption system that has been around since 1991.

For five years the technology was owned, and largely ignored, by Symantec's rival McAfee, when it was known as NAI, before a management buy-out in 2002.

While PGP historically focussed mainly on encrypting data in transit, GuardianEdge specialises in endpoint security, encrypting data at rest.

Both companies are currently privately held. Symantec expects the deals to close in the next couple of months.