Oracle acquires Bharosa
Oracle has acquired the identity theft prevention vendor Bharosa to boost its authentication and fraud detection technologies. Oracle said that the purchase was driven by demand for solutions to ease the burden of compliance requirements, such as the Federal Information Security Act of 2002 (FISMA), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Payment Card Industry (PCI) requirements.
Bharosa, a Califonia-based firm, has more than 25 million users, according to Oracle. The companyâs Tracker and Authenticator software will be sold on a standalone basis, with integrations for both Oracle and non-Oracle environments, according to the networking giant.
The deal is expected to close next month. Financial details were not disclosed.
“Oracle Identity Management ranks among the industryâs top solutions and we plan to continue rapidly expanding our security business to provide our customers with the most comprehensive, leading information protection solutions available,” said Hasan Rizvi, vice president for identity management and security products, in a press release issued on Wednesday. “We expect Oracle and Bharosa, together, to provide enterprises with a comprehensive identity management solution that integrates proactive, real-time fraud prevention.”
Mark Diodati, analyst with the Burton Group, said on the firmâs Identity Blog on Wednesday that the acquisition sets Oracle up to gain large corporations as customers.
“Oracle and Bharosa have integrated some of their products over the past year, but why did Oracle acquire Bharosa? The first reason is that the acquisition gives them an entry point into the exploding consumer authentication market. Many of the worldâs largest corporations are implementing consumer authentication solutions to mitigate identity theft, consumer fraud and meet compliance initiatives,” he said. “The acquisition will provide some âpull-throughâ of Oracleâs other IdM [identity management] products (particularly Access Manager). The acquisition also complements Oracleâs Mantras and Reveleus financial services.”
An Oracle representative could not be reached for comment.