Google has acquired Impermium, a start-up specializing in web account security, for an undisclosed sum.
Impermium, which was based in Redwood City, California, delivers threat intelligence and risk-based authentication to protect against account hijacking. The Impermium Edge Sentinel featured a risk-based authentication system instead of simple username+password for each session. The technology identifies the predictable patterns of legitimate users based on behavioral analytics and social intelligence (Social SIGNIT) from 1,500,000 websites, along with adversarial machine learning to build its risk-based profile. It can be used to protect against account hacking, comment spam, malware placement, hate speech, profanity, information theft and registration fraud. The company had previously cited a number of major websites as customers, including Tumblr, Pinterest, ESPN, CNN and The Washington Post.
Investors in the Impermium included Accel Partners, AOL Ventures, Charles River Ventures, Data Collective, Freestyle Capital, Greylock Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Morado Ventures, and the Social+Capital Partnership.
