Vulnerability management firm PatchLink has agreed a deal to acquire endpoint security firm SecureWave.

Subject to the approval SecureWave shareholders, the all stock merger is expected to complete within a month. Financial terms of the deal, announced Monday, were not released.

SecureWave's "whitelisting" technology offers an alternative to conventional anti-virus software. PatchLink, as its name implies, is best known for developing software that takes away the pain of the patching process. The combined firm plans to merge the two technologies to create a "platform for unified protection and control" of all enterprise servers and endpoints.

PatchLink said its deal to acquire SecureWave is representative of the industry's move away from a "reliance of signature based policy enforcement towards a converged proactive end-point solution with centralised reporting".

The deal is the second acquisition for PatchLink in 2007, following its February purchase of the STAT Guardian Vulnerability Management Suite from Harris Corporation. ®

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