The Redwood City, Calif., database giant Oracle Corp., seeking to expand its online fraud prevention capabilities,
Oracle said Wednesday that it would incorporate Bharosa into its identity management and security products unit, which serves a variety of industries, rather than the financial services global business unit unveiled last month. Related Links
Demand for technology that can spot and stop fraud has been strong in securities trading, insurance, mutual funds, health care, government, and e-commerce, he said. “Identify management has been our fastest growing suite of products over the last year.”
Bharosa’s real-time risk analysis and access control applications are designed to interrupt a user’s online session to ask for additional authentication if the user’s behavior deviates from expected patterns.
John Fisher, Bharosa’s chief executive, said that bankers have been driven to improve their online security because of mandates such as the Payment Card Industry security standards and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council’s strong authentication requirement. Other industries, such as health care, face their own mandates, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, he said.
“Compliance has been a tremendous driver in financial services. That has been a key focus for us for some time,” Mr. Fisher said.
Founded four years ago, Bharosa has concentrated much of its efforts on banking — its customers include Wells Fargo & Co. and National City Corp. — but it also serves the Air Force and companies in other industries, he said.
Mr. Rizvi said Oracle would integrate Bharosa’s technology into its Fusion middleware, which uses service-oriented architecture and other industry-standard technologies to integrate other systems that Oracle has acquired through acquisition.
Also, Oracle plans to continue to offer Bharosa’s Tracker and Authenticator software on a stand-alone basis.
“That creates one more feed, if you will, into those institutions,” Mr. Rizvi said. “We get multiple ways to approach this market.”
He noted that i-flex solutions ltd., the Mumbai core processing software vendor majority owned by Oracle, announced last month that it would offer Bharosa security software to its banking clients. Bharosa and i-flex already had been working to make their systems to work together to serve clients they have in common, he said.
Nick Holland, a senior analyst at the Boston research and advisory firm Aite Group LLC, said that other companies, such as EMC Corp.’s RSA Security, are active acquirers in data security.
“RSA and Oracle are snapping up these smaller companies to enhance their own solutions,” he said.
Other industries face the same security issues as banking, even though it is often ahead of others in fighting fraud and identity theft, Mr. Holland said. “Financial services, health care, and government have a lot of common problems. Things are far less siloed. People look at security in a more holistic manner.”
Such deals ease the concern of large companies about relying on a small, independent vendor, but they also can dampen innovation, because the provider is “not as hungry to survive,” he said. “As soon as a loophole is exposed, there will be a raft of companies start up to address it. It’s cyclical.”
The deal is expected to close next month. Oracle did not say how much it would pay.
