Art of Defence Acquisition by Zeus Technology

Increasing Demand for Innovative Web Application Security in the Cloud is the Driving Force behind the Acquisition

Cambridge, UK – Zeus Technology, the pioneers of Application Delivery Controller software, today announced it has purchased the assets of art of defence, a German-based distributed web application firewall (dWAF) provider.

Zeus’ acquisition of art of defence is in direct response to the increased demand to protect web applications from security threats exacerbated by cloud deployment. Zeus Application Firewall Module, built on technology licensed from art of defence since May 2009, protects web applications on premise, or in the cloud against known and unknown attacks at the application layer and helps to provide PCI-DSS compliance. Both Zeus and art of defence technologies have been designed to run on any virtualization or cloud platform – unlike legacy hardware-based solutions – making the two product sets a perfect fit.

This acquisition strengthens Zeus’ position as a leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure ensuring that organizations have a complete, integrated, solution for accelerating, securing and scaling their business-critical applications.

“After partnering with art of defence for several years, we are excited to take the next step in fully integrating the industry’s most robust dWAF into our platform,” said Jim Darragh, CEO of Zeus Technology. “Like Zeus, art of defence is focused on providing customers with solutions that meet the needs of dynamic virtual and cloud environments. By coming together, we can ensure we continue to push the pace of innovation for our customers, while providing them with the best support team.”

The acquisition strengthens Zeus’ presence in Germany with art of defence’s Regensburg-based headquarters becoming Zeus’ official German operation headed up by art of defence’s two founders Georg Hess, CEO and Alexander Meisel, CTO. All art of defence’s staff will transition into Zeus’ new German operating company. In addition to being integrated into the Zeus portfolio, art of defence’s anchor hyperguard™ product line will continue to be offered as standalone product.

“At art of defence, we have always strived to make web applications completely safe and secure in any deployment scenario,” said Georg Hess, founder and CEO of art of defence. “By joining forces with Zeus, we will be able to deliver our products embedded within the industry’s best load balancing and traffic management solutions. This alliance is a natural fit for us, offering the resources and technology to continue to build dWAF technology with unparalleled flexibility and effectiveness, while still providing our existing customers and partners the high level of support they are accustomed to.”

Zeus Application Firewall Module will help online businesses by providing compliance with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), a requirement that regulates how organizations process, transmit or store credit card information. Zeus Application Firewall Module identifies and classifies transactions as well as encrypts and seals information, to protect against unauthorized access and securely handles non-permitted requests so they never reach the application and are logged for audit purposes.

For further information about Zeus Application Firewall Module, please visit http://www.zeus.com/products/application-firewall

About Zeus Technology
Zeus delivers high performance software-based load balancing and traffic management solutions for virtual and cloud environments. Zeus enables enterprises to deliver applications and websites with a consistently excellent user-experience, whatever the demand, with the flexibility and economics of cloud.

Zeus frees applications from the constraints of proprietary hardware-based load balancers, enabling them to run in any physical, virtual or cloud environment, and to migrate and scale on-demand.

Zeus powers the web presence of key brands across the world including, the BBC, BT, Comic Relief, Domino’s Pizza, Gilt Groupe, ITV, Play.com, See Tickets, STA Travel and Virgin Media. Zeus products are also available as a service on most leading cloud platforms including Amazon, Rackspace, Joyent and Terremark, with more being added by the day. For more information, visit www.zeus.com.

About art of defence
Founded in 2005, art of defence established its San Francisco-based North American headquarters in 2009. Focused exclusively on providing comprehensive web application security technology on any scale, art of defence’s distributed web application firewall (dWAF) technology, hyperguard™, is the industry’s first WAF SaaS offering available through the Amazon Web Services Partner Program. Available in many forms, hyperguard is the most flexible solution on the market today. Customers have access to the solution as a software plug-in, virtual appliance, hardware appliance or as a standalone software solution.

Press contacts for Zeus Technology
USA
Juliana Allen/Meredith L. Eaton
March Communications
+1 617 960 9880 / +1 617 960 9877
[email protected]

UK, Europe and Asia Pacific
Elliot Adams, Louisa Benckendorff and Becky Stanway Nelson Bostock Communications
+44 (0)207 229 4400
[email protected]

Press contacts for art of defence
Germany
Petra Meyer Dr. Haffa & Partner Public Relations GmbH
+49 (0) 89 993191-0
[email protected]