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A recent survey by mobile device security specialist Pointsec revealed a distinctly lackadaisical attitude among those passing through London’s Heathrow airport: almost half of all passengers who lose their laptop, PDA or mobile phone fail to claim their device. Moreover, the contents of a quarter of those unclaimed devices was not even secure with as much as a password or PIN.

If this is a global phenomenon, says Pointsec, organisations are leaving themselves dangerously exposed – and creating huge opportunity for companies able to address that vulnerability.

That has made Pointsec a hot property, and one that CHECK POINT SOFTWARE, a vendor famed for its firewall and network security software, could not resist.

Its acquisition of PROTECT DATA, Pointsec’s parent in November for $586 million will extend the Israel-headquartered company’s reach outside the firewall through the use of Pointsec’s data encryption software for protecting at the ‘end point’.

The move also recognised that regulatory authorities are increasingly demanding that data is secured both within and outside the enterprise.

Pointsec has a become leader in that mobile security niche. Its technology covers hard disk encryption, as well as protection against intrusion on PCs and portable storage devices. And that focus has been highly lucrative for the Sweden-based company: net income for the first nine months of 2006 almost trebled to SEK35.8 million ($7.9m) on revenue that grew by 92% to SEK370.8 million ($51.0)

Before the Check Point acquisition, however, Protect Data itself had been on the acquisition trail, adding UK-based REFLEX SOFTWARE, a rival supplier of end-point security and disk encryption systems, for $24 million. One reason for the acquisition was to bolt Reflex’s port control and peripheral blocking functionality – both important in stopping data theft – onto its Pointsec products.

Others from the security sector were also actively acquiring in November. Industry leader SYMANTEC picked up COMPANY-I, another UK-based supplier, specialising in professional services for data centres, particularly in the financial services industry. Its management services are designed to reduce data centre infrastructure risk and cost.

The deal bolsters Symantec’s fast-growing professional services division through the addition of Company-i’s relationships with Royal Bank of Scotland, BSkyB and Merrill Lynch and others in financial services. That Symantec services division brought in $54.6 million in revenue, 5% of the company’s $1.26 billion revenue total during its third quarter ending 30 September 2006.

Click here to view the full mergers and acquisitions table.