Confirmed: IBM slurps up Bruce Schneier with Resilient purchase

RSA 2016 After nearly a week of rumors IBM has confirmed it has bought incident response firm Resilient Systems and so gained the services of its CTO security guru Bruce Schneier.

"We are excited to be joining IBM Security, the industry's fastest-growing enterprise security company," said John Bruce, Resilient Systems' CEO. "By combining, the market now has access to the leading prevention, detection and response technologies available in the same portfolio – the security trifecta."

Resilient develops complicated playbooks for dealing with a security incident, giving users a quick and tested way to mitigate the worst effects of a breach in the corporate servers.

The buy was widely expected after last week's announcement that Resilient has integrated its incident response system into IBM's QRadar X-Force security platform and the price tag for the firm is rumored to be $100m, but IBM is keeping quiet on the final fee.

An IBM spokesman told El Reg that the firm intended to bring the full management team into Big Blue, meaning Schneier will once again be back in a corporate job after escaping BT, following the sale of his earlier firm Counterpane to the British technology giant.

In addition to the Resilient buy, IBM also said it is adding further incident response chops with the launch of a remote response service. IBM engineers will monitor clients' data flows and provide an early warning if intruders are sniffing around using malicious code. The firm is also taking data from endpoint securer Carbon Black for its system.

"By adding Resilient Systems' technology and expertise, IBM will have an industry-leading range of capabilities to help clients respond to cyber breaches, across consulting, services, and products," said Marc van Zadelhoff, GM at IBM Security.

"With our intent to acquire Resilient Systems, and our other announcements today, we are doubling down on the incident response market. Cybersecurity needs to function like an immune system, both in preventing breaches, but also in quickly eradicating those that do occur." ®