Tag: us mobile security

AVG Technologies has announced its intentions to purchase Location Labs.

The Dutch anti-virus and internet security software company has revealed it has made a $220 million deal to acquire the California-based mobile security firm in an effort to improve its security offerings for mobile devices.

Many of the top mobile operators in the US market use Location Labs technologies.

At&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, and Telefonica use the mobile security company’s integrated platform to provide their Android smartphones with integrated security, which comes as a pre-installed service on the phones.

According to AVG, the acquisition will considerably widen its position as an internet security provider and will also speed up the expansion of its mobile security division. At the same time, by acquiring Location Labs, AVG stated it will not only gain access to personal security products of value, but could also form new partnerships with the four major US mobile operators.

“Location Labs has effectively cracked the code for mobile monetisation through its highly successful business model with industry partners. This acquisition significantly accelerates AVG’s mobile strategy in this area,” said AVG’s CEO Gary Kovacs. He noted that the company is not only unique in the market for providing secure mobile services, but it has also managed to do this in a way that generates money.

The deal gives Location Labs the chance to boost its mobile security offerings beyond the US market.

Tasso Roumeliotis, the founder of Location Labs, said that by adding AVG’s mobile products to their own “services and products will significantly enhance the innovation and support we can provide to our partners and to additional markets worldwide.”

Under agreement terms, AVG is to pay $149 million upfront and, based on performance levels and targets, an additional $80 million over the next two years. Before the acquisition takes place, it requires shareholder approval. However, if it is accepted, it is anticipated that the deal will close during Q4 2014.

Presently, AVG’s offerings for mobile security include AVG Zen, which is an app for both Android powered mobile devices and Windows PCs, as well as AVG AntiVirus for Android.

This announcement was made in line with the one year anniversary of the Digital Government Strategy.

Officials from the White House have just announced a number of new initiatives and resources that it is making available, including guidelines for mobile security, which are meant to help to boost the vision of the administration to allow access to government information, in a secure manner, on any device and at any time.

Digital Government Strategy U.S. CIO Steven VanRoekel made the announcement regarding these brand new initiatives.

He said that they are meant to help to maintain the building that is occurring on the foundation of accomplishments that have already been achieved over the last year by the Digital Government Strategy. Within a joint statement, federal CTO Todd Park, and VanRoekel announced that a government wide set of mobile security guidelines have been published by the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The guidelines also offer a baseline of standard mobile security requirements for federal agencies.

Furthermore, beyond those requirements for computing, it also includes a federal agency mobile computing decision framework, and a reference architecture for mobile security. These new documents are meaningful not only because they provide a standard for government agencies and industry for the development of products that can be used more safely on government networks, but also because of the active roles in development that were played by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security.

VanRoekel explained that “This work … really sets the foundation in place for the next phase of federal computing.” He also went on to add that “The future for us is one where mobile is the default computing platform.”

This announcement was made closely on the heels of an approval that the government gave to iPhones and other iOS based devices based on their ability to pass the mobile security requirements throughout a lengthy and exhaustive testing process. The federal government has also released a new catalog for developers that is made up of more than four hundred machine readable government data sets.