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| Company type | Public (Former Nasdaq symbol:TISX) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer software Computer security |
| Founded | 1983; 43 years ago (1983) |
| Founder | Stephen T. Walker |
| Fate | Acquired byMcAfee, later by SPARTA, Inc., which was acquired by Cobham, plc |
| Successor | McAfee |
| Headquarters | Glenwood,Maryland, U.S. |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Firewall Software,IPSec VPN, Trusted OS |
Trusted Information Systems, Inc. (TIS), was a computer security research and development company during the 1980s and 1990s, performing computer and communications (information) security research for organizations such asNSA,DARPA,ARL,AFRL,SPAWAR, and others.
TIS was founded in 1983 byNSA veteran Steve Walker,[1] and at various times employed notableinformation security experts includingDavid Elliott Bell, Martha Branstad,John Pescatore, Marv Schaefer,[2]Steve Crocker,Marcus Ranum, Wei Xu, John Williams,Steve Lipner andCarl Ellison. TIS was headquartered in Glenwood, Maryland, in a rural location. The company was started in Walker's basement on Shady Lane in Glenwood, MD. As the company grew, rather than move toBaltimore or theWashington D.C. suburbs, a small office building was constructed on land next to Walker's new home on Route 97.
TIS projects included the following:
TIS's operating system work directly affectedBSD/OS, which theGauntlet Firewall andIPSec was based on, as well asLinux,FreeBSD,HP UX,Sun OS,Darwin, and others.
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The company went public in 1996[4]and soon afterwards attempted to acquirePGP Inc.; it was instead acquired in 1998 byNetwork Associates (NAI), which later becameMcAfee, who had already bought PGP Inc. in 1997. The security research organization became NAI Labs and the Gauntlet engineering and development organization was folded into Network Associates' engineering and development.
NAI Labs went through a couple of branding changes which complemented Network Associates' branding efforts. In 2001 the name was changed to Network Associates Laboratories to better match the corporate identity. Then, in 2002-2003, there was a major branding initiative by Network Associates culminating in selection of the flag brand, McAfee. As a result, the security research organization became McAfee Research.
In 2003, SPARTA, Inc., an employee-owned company, acquired the Network Security branch of McAfee Research.
In 2005, SPARTA acquired the remaining branches of McAfee Research, which were organized into the Security Research Division (SRD) of the Information Systems Security Operation (ISSO).
In 2008, Cobham, plc, a British aerospace company, acquired SPARTA. There have been no organizational changes to SRD or ISSO that affect the security research.
On a separate path, TIS's primary commercial product, the Gauntlet Firewall, was acquired in 2002 from McAfee bySecure Computing Corporation (SCC), that used to be one of TIS's major competitors, because at the time McAfee wasn't interested in being a firewall vendor.The code base was integrated with Secure Computing's firewall product and branded Sidewinder Firewall, which then returned to McAfee when Secure Computing was acquired by them in 2008, and re-branded McAfee Enterprise Firewall. The end of this product line came in 2013, following McAfee's acquisition of another major firewall vendor, Finland-basedStonesoft. McAfee announced in October 2013 the intention to migrate their existing installed base of firewalls to Stonesoft's own Stonegate.
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