Kaspersky Lab acquires 49% of Ximi Pro, developer of container IT infrastructure protection

MOSCOW. Feb 20 (Interfax) - Kaspersky Lab acquired 49% of Ximi Pro, a company in the field of container IT infrastructure security or containerization, a type of virtualization that allows third-party applications to be run in isolation from the operating system.

The deal will allow Kaspersky Lab to offer its own solution for protecting container infrastructures with the ability to detect and respond to threats in these environments, the company said in a press release. Piloting will begin in Q2 2023, with the start of commercial sales planned for Q3 2023.

"We see a growing demand for container security, as an increasing number of companies are using this type of infrastructure," Andrei Efremov, director of business development at Kaspersky Lab, said. "The product we bring to market will be in demand in all sorts of industries; not only in IT and software development, but also in banks, retail, industry, and in general, wherever there is modern program development."

Ximi Pro LLC was registered in March 2022 and was a subsidiary of Ximi Lab LLC until August 2022. As of February 16, 2023, 77.05% of the company belonged to Mikhail Tainov and 22.95% to Artem Tovbin. Ximi Pro's Tron software is included in the register of domestic software, according to the SPARK-Interfax analytical system.

Tainov and Tovbin are also co-owners of Ximi Lab LLC, with 55% and 45% respectively. The company's revenue in 2021 was 427.8 million rubles with a net profit of 65 million rubles.

There is a significant number of containerized applications on the world market for working with various types of operating systems, including Linux, Windows, MacOS and others. The global containerized software market will grow to $944 million by 2024 as this type of virtualization helps streamline enterprise IT infrastructures and development processes, Gartner forecasts.

However, because of configuration errors and vulnerabilities in key components of this type of infrastructure, it can become a mark for criminals who specialize in targeted attacks.

The new Kaspersky Lab product will allow for the monitoring of what is happening in the container infrastructure, detect suspicious behavior, and protect it from intruders.