Gemalto to acquire SafeNet for hacking protection

The acquisition, from private-equity company Vector Capital, is expected to be completed in Q4 2014.

Incidents of hacking and security breaches have multiplied, affecting companies from eBay to Snapchat. Recently, a US security company said a group of hackers in Russia had amassed 1.2 billion sets of looted user names and passwords.

Gemalto is a global provider of digital security with more than 12,000 employees operating out of 85 offices and 25 research and software development centers, located in 44 countries. Gemalto delivers on their customers’ needs for personal mobile services, payment security, authenticated cloud access, identity and privacy protection, eHealthcare and eGovernment efficiency, ticketing and dependable machine-to-machine (M2M) applications.

Founded in 1983, SafeNet is an information security company that protects sensitive data for organizations around the globe. SafeNet’s data-centric approach focuses on the protection of high-value information throughout its lifecycle, from the data center to the cloud.