With vulnerabilities like the Heartbleed bug terrifying large companies full of consumer data, Oulu-based security firm Codenomicon is positioned nicely to protect companies from a world full of software vulnerabilities. In some sense you could say they make the market – a Codenomicon employee was the first to discover and name the Heartbleed bug while improving a feature in their security testing tools, and reported the bug to the National Cyber Security Centre in Finland.
Now Synopsys announced they’ve acquired Codenomicon, plugging in the security firm into the world’s 15th largest software company. The details of the acquisition were not announced.
Founded in 2001 as a spinoff from the University of Oulu, Condenomicon’s most notable products are their Defensics tool for file and protocol fuzz testing, and its AppCheck tool for software composition analysis and vulnerability assessment. Synopsys meanwhile provides electronic design automation and semiconductor IP, but Codenomicon will plug into their software quality and security testing solutions under its Coverity brand.
“Businesses are increasingly concerned about the security of their applications and protecting customer data. Adding the Internet of Things to the mix increases the complexity of security even further. During the past 15 months, the world was hit by major security breaches such as Heartbleed, Shellshock, etc.,” said Chi-Foon Chan, president and co-CEO of Synopsys. “By combining the Coverity platform with the Codenomicon product suite, Synopsys will expand its reach to provide a more robust software security solution with a full set of tools to help ensure the integrity, privacy and safety of an organization’s most critical software applications.”
Want to see a nice exit? Set up a security firm in Finland 15 years ago. Established Finnish security firms seem ripe for the picking when it comes to foreign acquisitions – in 2013 McAfee acquired Helsinki’s Stonesense for €297 million, and last fall Ubisecure was acquired by GMO Globalsign.
Heartbleed image by shutterstock
