Recently, the security risk assessment has become a growing market. Noticing this, the security giant Symantec Corp laid eyes on the small Virginia-based firm named FrontSecurity. On Feb. 23, Symantec bought out 4FrontSecurity, according to a representative for the Cupertino, Calif.-based firm.
A company representative stated: "The acquisition provides Symantec with new tools that will help our customers make manual web-based policy compliance assessments. We expect this small acquisition to augment SymantecÆs existing compliance and security-management solutions and enhance our customers control of the information affecting risk management, regulatory and IT policy compliance and security in their businesses".

Chris Parker and Steve Crutchley, co-founders of  4FrontSecurity, developed a set of automated risk analysis and security management tools, which will be incorporated as within the Control Compliance Suite. Parker and Crutchley used a $100,000 investment from the Herndon, Va.-based Center for Innovative Technology to develop a framework around a library of content that organizations could use to measure performance and assess business risk.
Parker stated that Symantec approached 4FrontSecurity "to bring new tools to capture and track procedural controls and measure them against a variety of industry best practices and standards. When we started getting into this, we realized that organizations were about to face the convergence of security issues, privacy issues and increasing regulatory oversight," Parker said. "We felt that this was going to become a very complex and costly aspect of operating a business.
He will continue to work with the tools as senior manger of product management and Crutchley is being brought on as senior manager of software engineering as part of Symantec's Security and Compliance Management group. The former 4FrontSecurity employees will work out of SymantecÆs Herndon, Va. offices, according to Cory Edwards, SymantecÆs manager of corporate communications.

The acquisition is the latest buy for Symantec, which has gobbled up a number of smaller firms in the past year.
Even more, Symantec has revealed that its proposed acquisition of Altiris is one step closer to completion following the early termination of a waiting period imposed by the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act.The companies first announced the proposed transaction in January. The deal is worth around US$830 million and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2007, after Altiris shareholder consent and regulatory approval in Germany. The completion being successful, Altiris stockholders will receive US$33 per share of the corporationÆs common stock in cash. The Utah-based firm has strategic links with HP, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens, Intel and Cisco.