FBI, Pentagon express unease about Check Point's proposed acquisition of Sourcefire

Published 3 March 2006

The rage over the port-management deal which would see a Dubai-based company taking over operations in twenty-one U.S. ports, is making life difficult for other foreign companies eager to acquire U.S. companies — if these companies deal with U.S. national security or own portions of U.S. critical infrastructure. Nevertheless, Columbia, Maryland-based Sourcefire, a U.S.-based intrusion-detection firm with a close connection to the Pentagon, said it was confident that its acquisition by Ramat Gan, Israel-based Check Point, an IT security specialist, would be able to move ahead despite the fact the U.S. government has launched a national-security probe of the $255 million deal. The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investments (USCFI) launched the investigation after the FBI and Pentagon expressed concerns about the wisdom of allowing the development of sophisticated anti-hacker technology to move abroad.

Check Point was founded by innovative Israeli billionaire Gil Shwed, who served, according to press reports, in the electronic intelligence division of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Sourcefire makes security software for customers which include the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency (NSA), DHS, and many more government agencies.

-read more at Web sites of Sourcefire | Check Point