The agreements are subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, and are expected to close during the June quarter.Įncryption technology is an important element of an information-centric security solution, as critical information is increasingly on mobile devices and in the cloud. Under the terms of the agreements, Symantec will acquire PGP Corporation for a purchase price of approximately $300 million in cash and GuardianEdge for a purchase price of approximately $70 million in cash. today announced it has signed definitive agreements to acquire PGP Corporation and GuardianEdge Technologies, Inc., two privately-held leaders in the email and data encryption market, which will extend its ability to help customers secure and manage their most critical information. Both countries' regulations only apply to breaches in which data isn't protected with high-level encryption. states now have a data breach disclosure law that requires a company to formally notify customers or employees when it's lost their private data through criminal hacking or negligence. Britain, for instance, recently passed the UK Data Protection Act, which fines companies for losing personal data related to its customers or employees. The deals follow an increase in regulations incentivizing encryption as a means to prevent data breaches. Guardian Edge in particular is focused on mobile device encryption, and had been a Symantec partner. That's become a higher priority as data more often resides on mobile devices or is distributed in off-site servers, sometimes controlled by a contractor or a storage-as-a-service company such as Google or Amazon. In a statement, Symantec emphasized that buying the two privately-held companies is part of its larger shift to "information-centric" security-a trend towards placing protections in data itself, no matter where it travels, rather than protecting the borders around that data with technology such as firewalls or antivirus software.