BlueCoat Systems, a privately owned network security appliance manufacturer, has announced its intention to acquire security analytics firm Solera Networks. 

Utah-based Solera Networks was founded in 2004 by a group of former Novell engineers. Its DeepSee platform captures, stores and indexes packets of network traffic so they can be analysed for evidence of security incidents. 

“Solera’s software acts like a security camera on the network, providing a detailed record of all packets, flows and files to detect and analyze the full scope of today’s advanced targeted attacks,” said the acquired company's CEO Steve Shillingford.

BlueCoat CEO Greg Clark said the ability to analyse historical network traffic is critical in defending against targeted security threats. 

"The future of the industry is moving beyond just blocking malware and stopping targeted attacks to also identifying and resolving the full scope of the attacks in real time,” Clark said in a statement.  

“Retrospective capture and analytics are now an essential component of modern security architecture, and Solera has pioneered this field, creating a DVR for the network that records traffic and allows customers to easily mine that information.”

BlueCoat said the combination of Solera's DeepSee technology and its web monitoring software would be able to "to provide an historic record of all network traffic will enable enterprises to efficiently identify and resolve the full scope of advanced threats".

In April, a BlueCoat distributor based in Dubai was recently fined $2.8 million by the US Department of Commerce for selling the company's kit to the Syrian government. The equipment had allegedly been used to censor the Internet in Syria. 

BlueCoat commended the Department of Commerce for "for pursuing and penalizing the third parties responsible for the unlawful transfer of our products to Syria without our knowledge."