A security software company specializing in host intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS), Third Brigade, announced that it has acquired a leading open source, host-based intrusion detection system, OSSEC, and that creator and primary developer for OSSEC, Daniel Cid, has joined the Third Brigade team as Principal Researcher, OSSEC Development. With new releases of OSSEC, and will extend commercial support and training to the OSSEC open source community, Third Brigade will continue to contribute to the open source community.

Providing security controls including log analysis, integrity checking, real-time alerting and active response, the OSSEC project produces a multi-platform, scalable, host-based intrusion detection system (HIDS). This functionality, in addition to continuing to deliver these capabilities through the free OSSEC open source project, will also be incorporated in future Third Brigade products.

CEO, Third Brigade, Wael Mohamed, stated: "OSSEC is a very successful open source security project, and there are many organizations that are requesting enterprise-caliber support for their OSSEC deployments." He adds: "Like Third Brigade, OSSEC is committed to delivering best-of-breed, host-based security controls for multi-platform, enterprise server environments. Together, we will ensure the continued success of this thriving open source community through dedicated resources and extended support."

The OSSEC community has active users in 40 countries. Two of the largest commercial banks, three of the top five financial data services companies, the top three entertainment companies, the top six aerospace and defense firms and more than 150 universities and colleges are included in the US by the community. This is further validation of the importance of host intrusion defense in mission critical environments.

Written by Daniel Cid, OSSEC began as an open source project 2003. The project, in the last two years, has issued five major releases of the OSSEC HIDS, including the most recent in early May, 2008. The project continually receives support and praise from its active user community, the security community and the general open source community. Daniel now joins Third Brigade as Principal Researcher, OSSEC Development and will be dedicated to development and support of OSSEC going forward.

Including Microsoft® Windows®, Linux, OpenBSD, SolarisTM, FreeBSD, MacOS and more, OSSEC software is scalable and easy to install across multiple platforms. In 2007, LinuxWorld recognized OSSEC as the #1 open source security tool, noting that it is "gaining widespread use and is quickly being deployed within organizations around the world as a method of protecting systems at the host level after attacks have made it past network defenses in the enterprise".