Buys the security and anti-phishing technology company; transaction to close in October.

Symantec Corp., today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire WholeSecurity Inc., a provider of security and anti-phishing technology. The transaction is expected to close in October.

According to WholseSecurity, combining their behavior-based technology with Symantec's industry leading solutions will enable them to deliver their capability to a much broader audience and move them further toward their vision of providing zero-hour protection for every endpoint.

"We have been the first line of defense for our customers, protecting them against new forms of malicious threats before signatures could be created," said J. Peter Selda, President and CEO, WholeSecurity.

"WholeSecurity provides industry leading protection from phishing attacks, one of the fastest growing threats to online transactions, such as banking, e-commerce, and auctions," said Enrique Salem, Senior Vice President, Symantec Security Products and Solutions. "WholeSecurity's family of solutions provides critical behavior-based security technology that we expect to be a core component of Symantec's baseline consumer security and enterprise desktop solutions."