NCC Group acquires Intrepidus Group for $11 million

Escrow and Assurance Services provider NCC Group has acquired US-based security research firm Intrepidus Group for £7.1m, or $11.million in cash. The move suggests an understanding on NCC’s part that mobile devices are becoming the new security battlefield.

NCC Group CEO Rob Cotton said in a press release this morning:

“Intrepidus is a highly respected business with an extremely strong presence in the rapidly growing mobile telecommunications sector. This acquisition is an important strategic development for us as it considerably widens our range of offerings, as well as industry IP, and brings a number of new blue chip technology customers. “Intrepidus will further increase our profile and capabilities in the significant New York market where we now have the largest testing team.”

I’ve attended a few security talks from the folks at Intrepidus in recent years. They’ve done a lot of significant research into smartphone vulnerabilities, particularly those affecting Android phones.

In one talk, Zach Lanier — now a researcher with Veracode — demonstrated how Android and other smart phone apps are full of old-school, exploitable vulnerabilities similar to those that plagued Windows desktops a decade ago.

Related:

—Touring (and surviving) the mobile app minefield

—Your Android’s dirty little secret

This is the second big security acquisition for NCC Group in the last month. A little over two weeks ago, the company announced its acquisition of Matasano Security for £8.4m ($13.0m) in cash.