IBM to Acquire Trusteer

IBM to Acquire Trusteer:

http://www-03.ibm.com/security/trusteer/?src=HPBanner

 

Well I hope they will make Trusteer less CPU hungry.... Otherwise I won't touch it with a 10 foot pole.

 

Don't worry they will make it payware for corporations, only free for customers of those corporations.

 

I agree.

 

Very interesting indeed.

IBM is not into consumer software. The only thing I can see of interest would be some some type of arrangement where the server side of this software being hosted on secure IBM servers perhaps? Since Trusteer already has the capability to isolate the client side using a dedicated virtual browser, I suspect the product will be expanded into a stand-alone product akin to that being offered by BitDefender, G-Data, etc.

Personally, I want nothing to do with Rapport after my recent experience with it and that incident was not performance related.

 

B2B2C is from IBM's point of view B2B, they will integrate the product with a secured VPN service or something like that. The corporation pays for the service, their customers or clients can use it, hence B2B2C

 

They invested many Millions of $ in AVG a few years ago though.

Be interested to know what the issue was

 

Wait what?
Now this was an unexpected acquisition by IBM.

 

Leaking data to the base... but from the description given it looks like more an issue with trusteer built-in reporting system (i.e. if a problem arise or in case of unknown components, etc) dressed with a bit of paranoia linked to "spying".

There is too much reputation at stake to make such a bad mistake... simply not a very realistic scenario. This is what the competition would dream about to find to discredit the producer (moreover considering that they offer the product for free).

In any case, it would be good to get evidence of the exact type of data been exchanged and concrete proof of systematic data leaking. Otherwise, no offense intended, is the usual FUD.

 

IBM is a global services company and any acquisition they make is aimed at the corporate client. A suite of security products would be attractive to a financial institution if it addresses both the needs of the corporation and the client. Maybe they see that potential in Trusteer.

It is apparent that the majority of financial institutions have changed their business model to 'encourage' their customers to use their online accounts. Online insurance claims or online banking save the FIs huge administration costs. Customers who do not use the online services face escalating fees. An example, $2/month for paper statement is the norm (some are as much as $5/month). Do the math ... more than one account and you get the message without the memo. Their customers use smartphones or computers to manage their financial matters, but too many of them do not have the knowledge to make those transactions safe. I see Users doing OLB on Public WiFi hotspots all the time and I just cringe. VPN and encryption at the client end without any setup smarts would be a good incentive for all concerned.

Hope they get it right and don't end up creating a bandwidth/memory monster that no-one will be happy with.

 

Previously posted in another thread:

When I installed EAM, it was conflicting with TR. Nothing serious but something I thought Trusteer should know about. So I created a trouble report with the TR software. That was a major, major mistake. Not only does TR upload their entire software footprint of your PC, I beleive they scan your entire system and upload info on that. Now I verified my event log times to ensure the following was a result of that data upload. The next day and every day thereafter, I had about 30 inbound unsolicted connections by svchost.exe from various Amazon servers blocked by the WIN 7 firewall at cold boot time. Trusteer uses Amazon servers exclusively. This went on for about two weeks and finally stopped when I removed TR.This activity was not TR updates; it uses it's own .exes for that.

Good riddence to you, Trusteer Rapport!

 

Trojan report included in Trusteer rapport ("send usage statistics"), in early version I tried (in 2010 or so) this could be disabled

 

@ fax & itman

Thanks for the info Found this test which confirms the Phone Homes etc !

Trusteer Rapport test etc

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=254757&highlight=trusteer

 

"source says paying close to $1 billion"
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/15/uk-trusteer-ibm-idUKBRE97E13J20130815

 

Ouch! it didn't come cheap...

 

Useless paranoia. You either trust a security company or you don't.

 

A good price for "snake oil", as many brilliant Wilders experts use to call Trusteer Rapport.

 

Very comprehensive review. However, it was done in 2009 and Trusteer has been rewritten since that time.

You have to use some common sense when using a product like Trusteer.

Banks are in the business of making money. If they offer you something for free, it is for their benefit not yours. Fraud losses are sizable for banks these days. One way to reduce those losses is to reduce their liability for customer reimbusement for same. You can rest assured that Trusteer is tracking your Internet usage and also the overall security status of your PC. Don't be surprised if that information will be used against you in the form of denial for account reimbursement for fraud activity.

 

Unless proven otherwise this is again just FUD.

 

Per Brian Krebs:

This feature is active on the latest release of Rapport and will trigger the launching of Trusteer's "virtual browser." At this point, you have been "warned" that financial malware exists on your PC.

In reality in the U.S., the Federal Reserve's regulation "E" protects most consumers from online banking losses. However, if someone cleans out your savings account for $100K, your bank is going to give you a hard time in getting your money back if it can in some way show you were partially at fault. You probably will get your money back but it will cost you in legal expenses.

 

Wow, $1 billion is quite a lot. They had $80 million revenue in 2012:
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000799100&fid=1724

 

The minimum that a bank can do on a system in which Trusteer has notified the user to be infected and the user ignored it or in a system with no security is to question any claim.

Its like if you leave your money on top of your car and then pretend to find them back at the end of the journey.

 

Well an internet based business, allready writing black figures with such a growth rate easily asks 12 to 15 times their revenue when going public (IPO). They allready had planned an IPO, so IBM had to match this.

 

Ok, thanks.

 

What would make Trusteer an attractive purchase is its established corporate(banks) client base. IBM aside from supercomputers is primarily into using consulting services to generate a good chunk of their revenve. A security product like Trusteer is an ideal "hook" into generating increased services revenue by taking advantage of the current wide-open IT security market.