RSSGoogle Quietly Acquires Security Firm
By Nate Mook | Published May 29, 2007, 4:59 PM
Although it normally touts its numerous acquisitions on the company blog, Google has yet to officially announce that it has purchased security firm Green Border, which offers software to protect Web users that takes a fairly unique approach.
Green Border, which happens to be located in Google's hometown of Mountain View, Calif., was founded in 2001, but has failed to make major headway in the marketplace. Its software has been offered as a free download, with a Pro version cosing $49.95 USD.
GreenBorder uses what it describes as "just-in-time virtualization" to build an extensible operating environment around the browser, separating its session from that of the operating system. The purpose of this virtual wrapper is to disable any active content downloaded and run through the browser from having any kind of direct and unwarranted access to the operating system.
With GreenBorder active, the Web browser is launched within a virtual session, which is marked on the screen with, literally, a green border around the browser window. Any new windows spawned through the browser also exist within this virtual session.
As a result, remote procedure calls intended to make changes to system settings are separated by a single layer of indirection, through which malware should not be able to pass. Conceptually, Microsoft offers a similar capability in Windows Vista with IE's "Protected Mode."
Although Google has not said what it plans to do with Green Border technology, the search giant has been recently bulking up its offerings for the enterprise with Google Apps. Such security features could also find their way into the consumer-oriented Google Toolbar.
In what is surely not a coincidence, Google last week launched a new blog devoted to covering online security issues. An initial post on the blog covered the topic of malware, which is exactly what Green Border's technology is focused on.
If they're going to make it a free software (which I think is a good assumption), they have to stop selling it and the free version is crippled. So they have to have the coders take off the payment screen from the software, then they have to add the Google name to it and maybe add some new options. I'll be back in a couple weeks, months when its done.
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|I wonder if this will be another example of big biz taking a great start up and ruining it? I mostly agree that in the future we'll be at virtual computing. Scarry, our systems are not totally secure'd now due to the way their built, I will be afraid of my data if I have little control of where it is being stored later.
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|Hi Nate. If you're interested in receiving this sort of news 4 days sooner, check out my blog where(to my knowledge), I was the first blogger to post this:
http://socialstrategist....security-update-edition
Every blog since then, until Mashable, has either linked to me:
http://googlified.com/20...ired-a-security-company/
Or linked to someone who linked to me:
http://googlesystem.blog...eenborder-security.html
I can't promise breaking news all the time, but I do try to at least provide great content.
Best,
Jay Neely, Social Strategist
http://socialstrategist.com
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|Sweet hopefully we see some more cool free stuff from Google. You know what would really drive microsoft to setup an attack against google would be if they started developing linux os and giving it away, call it G-Linux or something.
I mean with google's marketing power, media attention with the news they could really hurt microsoft same thing with openoffice.org if they helped out that community they could set ms office on fire. Majority of the public doesn't even know a free alternative exists.
Point is, they buy they adapt they offer new services. I know I love the majority of services they offer.
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|ou know what would really drive microsoft to setup an attack against google would be if they started developing linux os and giving it away, call it G-Linux or something.
Don't hold your breath. Everything they've done so far is aimed squarely (or at least mainly) at the desktop.
That said, take over the desktop and no-one will care what OS is running underneath it, so it'd be pretty easy (an "update") to simply remove the underlying OS and replace it with some other OS that supports the Google Desktop.
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|Appears due to the acquisition, they've stopped offering the software. Both, for purchase and or for free.
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|Pretty typical. Google shut down beta sign-ups for Writely when they bought them as well. Seems to be their SOP.
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