Canadian managed security services provider Herjavec Group buys British security vendor Sysec for an unspecified sum, part of a 3-year $250 million expansion plan into European markets.

Sysec is 2014 McAfee EMEA Accredited Certified Engineer (ACE) partner of the year, and is said to have over 200 enterprise clients across the UK and Europe.

“The work we do in enabling enterprises to be more secure has never had a greater focus on a global scale,” Herjavec Group CEO Robert Herjavec says. “I am so pleased to embark on our expansion into Europe and welcome the Sysec team to Herjavec Group.”

IBM announces Identity mixer-- a cloud-based security technology to help customers better protect online personal data, including date of birth, home address and credit card numbers.

Identity Mixer encrypts certified identity attributes via cryptographic algorithm, and provides required keys to reveal only select pieces to 3rd parties of the online service variety (banking, shopping, social networks). It can make part of a digital wallet (such as a government-issued electronic ID card), and ensures the issuers of said credentials has no knowledge of how they are used.

“Identity Mixer enables users to choose precisely which data to share, and with whom”, IBM says. “Now web service providers can improve their risk profile and enhance trust with customers, and it’s all in the cloud, making it easy for developers to program.”

Georgia Institute of Technology researchers suggest the keyboard can provide a means of security beyond the simple password, by creating a biometric means of identification based on how the user presses the keys.

To do so, the keyboard records the force users apply to the keys, as well as the time taken between one keystroke and the next. Meanwhile the multi-layer plastic materials making the device allow it to harvest electricity from the users' fingertips (via effect called "contact electrification"), allowing it to either charge a small mobile device or power a wireless transmitter.

As researcher Zhong Lin Wang puts it, “our skin is dielectric and we have electrostatic charges in our fingers. Anything we touch can become charged.”

German security MSP antispameurope announces a corporate identity revamp-- it now calls itself Hornetsecurity and presents a "fresher, more modern appearance."

Founded in 2007, the renamed company counts 26000 customers and has a network of over 450 partners, around 300 of which based in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It offers a range of cloud-based security products, including email solutions such as spam filtering, archiving, continuity and archiving.

“By changing our name, we reacted to our growing product portfolio and our strategic expansion into new markets and countries”, the company says. “On the other hand, we focus with the new website increasingly on current trends such as consumerisation of IT and usability, including on-the-go.”