Symantec To Buy VeriSign's Authentication Business

overThruster writes "Security giant Symantec is taking another step toward global domination of the information security market with the purchase of VeriSign's authentication business. Back in April it purchased PGP Corporation and GuardianEdge. VeriSign is the best known Certificate Authority; they are virtually synonymous with certificates for SSL and PKI. It seems like this could dilute the trust value of their brand rather than enhance it. It is not clear yet what effects this will have on VeriSign customers but the cynic in me says it can't be good. In terms of putting all your eggs in one basket, this will sure make Symantec a juicy target for hackers (as if they weren't already). Imagine you could hack one company and control a large chunk of endpoint security software and the bulk of the Internet's public key infrastructure."

Comments

Windows sector dragging rest of Internet down

[Burz]

...into a black hole. These Symantec / Verisign / PGP mergers show how the utterly decrepit Windows PC market failure (desktop monopoly, plus a small handful of app vendors like Symantec) has made the Internet much more treacherous by failing to deliver reasonably secure systems. And now these incompetent and greedy beasts (who are in fact more interested in hobbling our computers to keep us on that 3-year upgrade cycle) are going to finish the job by devouring important Internet institutions.

Symantec: The gross Microsoft toadies who not long ago tried to scare Mac users into buying their crapware with fevered stories of impending viral doom. Their white papers have the tone of 'buy into our security model you little mislead Unix neophytes, or your computers are gonna get it any day now!'

BE VERY AFRAID OF THIS MERGER.