Trusteer newly acquired by IBM

Cybersecurity , Cloud -based, software provider is bought out by corporate giant for nearly 1 billion USD.

Trusteer, anti-fraud software provider to 400 banks and financial organizations (HSBC, RBS and Merill Lynch: three of the biggest names on the list) has been bought out by IBM, who plans to establish an Israel-based research laboratory for data security innovation, with particular focus on mobile devices.

Mickey Boodaei, Trusteer’s chief executive, who founded the company in 2006, together with Shlomo Kramer and other US investors, talks to TheMarker about Trusteer: "We built our name based on our ability to support large financial organizations that have millions if not tens of millions of fraud attempts a year…We helped them minimize online fraud."

Trusteer’s technology against malware is one particular area of cyber-fraud that has attracted banking clients who have lost a hefty sum to attackers who gain entry to end-user computers and subsequently steal funds from banking profiles: "The moment we understood the problem and the limitations of existing solutions, we built a unique system to identify attacks," explained Boodaei.

With reported numbers for mobile payment showing steady growth and increasing potential: like the fact that 244.4 million mobile phones have been sold in China so far this year, 91% of which being smartphones and the predicted rise in UK mobile banking transactions, anti-fraud solutions for mobile phones – which marks the future output of Trusteer brainpower - will surely be the number one security demand in the payment industry. IBM’s procurement, thus, suggests interesting potential for industry penetration and possibly even, unlimited success.