Data protection specialist Bitglass arrives in EMEA, appointing Eduard Meelhuysen as regional VP of sales as it starts selling its cloud access security broker (CASB) and agentless mobile security solutions in the region.

Founded in 2013, Bitglass offers CASB complete with inline, real-time data protection from any device for cloud apps such as Office 365, Salesforce and Box. According to Gartner CASBs are on the cusp of growth, predicting 85% of large enterprises will make use of such products for their cloud products in 2020, up from the 5% of today. The analyst adds the CASB is "a compelling cloud security control platform for organisations of all sizes adopting cloud services."

As mentioned earlier, spearheading the Bitglass EMEA effort is Eduard Meelhuysen, a former sales executive at Imperva, Aerohive Networks, and Netskope.

The Mirai botnet responsible for the recent internet outage of almost 1 million Deutsche Telekom customers is going global-- security firm Flashpoint reports the malware variant has spread to at least 10 other countries.

Countries affected by the Mirai variant include the UK, Italy, Ireland, Turkey, Brazil, Iran, Chile, Australia and Argentina and Thailand, as well as Germany. Flashpoint does not know the actual number of infected devices, but some estimates put the number to around 5 million. Either way, as the security company puts it, it makes for a "sizable population."

Mirai first made the news back in October 2016 as the botnet responsible for the DDoS attack big enough to disrupt internet traffic across the US. The malware affects connected devices with weak default passwords, making them easy to infect. A new Mirai strain is responsible for the attack on Deutsche Telekom, specifically through a vulnerability in the SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) services embedded in Zyxel router products.

Symantec announces the acquisition of consumer identity protection services provider LifeLock for $2.3 billion-- a deal Symantec says will turn it into the biggest consumer-facing security outfit in the world.

“As we all know, consumer cybercrime has reached crisis levels. LifeLock is a leading provider of identity and fraud protection services, with over 4.4 million highly-satisfied members and growing.  With the combination of Norton and LifeLock, we will be able to deliver comprehensive cyber defense for consumers,” Symantec CEO Greg Clark remarks. “This acquisition marks the transformation of the consumer security industry from malware protection to the broader category of Digital Safety for consumers.”

Confirmation of the deal follows a 14 November Bloomberg story claiming LifeLock was going to be bought by either Symantec, buyout group Pemira or private equity group TDG Capital. The mention of TDG is of note, since it is the entity handling the spinoff of Intel Security into an stand-alone company. Or  the undoing of the 2010 McAfee acquisition, if one wants to be wholly technical.

Kaspersky Labs CEO Eugene Kaspersky insists Microsoft is "killing off" all security competition-- Windows 10 "automatically and without warning" replaces all security software with the company's Defender alternative.

"Microsoft is gradually squeezing independent developers out of the Windows ecosystem if it has its own application for this or that purpose," a blog post by the CEO reads. "In doing so, Microsoft is acting against the interests of users since a lot of its products are of inferior quality."

Kaspersky says Microsoft gave independent developers all of a week to make their software compatible with Windows 10-- an attempt in unfairly beating the competition, he says-- and even violates the Windows 10 rule where only one anti-virus should be active on a system, since Defender occasionally switches on automatically even in the presence of an independent alternative. According to Kaspersky this "demonstrates the results of [Microsoft's] blustery activity, again egging the user on to ditch the other AV and stick with Defender."