Although financial details of the deal have not been revealed, Marshal8e6 is quoted as saying it wants to integrate Avinti's behavioural analysis technology into its own products.
Behavioural analysis is seen by some as a potential holy grail of the IT security industry since it analyses the actions of program code and users - in fact, every small code transaction - in a computing environment and allocates a risk factor.
If the risk factor is too high, the transaction - and usually its entire associated code execution process - is placed in quarantine and/or prevented from fully actioning.
Utah-based Avinti's main claim to fame is iSolation Server, a proprietary behaviour analysis application that is being patented and it appears that this is what attracted Marshal8e6's attentions.
iSolation Server creates a virtual machine that examines emails and their attachments, allowing all relevant code to execute. The web links included in emails are also opened and the resultant page content also analysed.
Avinti claims its technology can execute the most complex email and its attachment in a few tens of seconds, before allocating a risk score to each message, and handling the email according to pre-defined rules.
The gameplan with adding behavioural analysis to the Marshal8e6 technology, Infosecurity understands, is that it will allow the vendor to develop its email and web security technology for a cloud computing environment.
Using this approach could make Marshal8e6 one of the first vendors to successfully develop a similar set of software applications for virtual, as well as real-world, servers.
Announcing his firm's acquisition of Avinti, George Shih, Marshal8e6's interim CEO, said that organisations are increasingly looking for methods to effectively detect and manage inbound malware across all communication channels.
"When we created Marshal8e6, we committed to providing the most effective multi-channel security solution on the market. With the acquisition of Avinti, we are delivering on that pledge," he says.
Shih went on to say that Avinti's proactive malware detection technology fulfils customers' requirements to block today's new threats.
"One of the key areas we anticipate using their technology is in blocking blended threats, an area that has successfully thwarted other Web and email security products," he says.
Following the completion of the acquisition, Avinti's Utah-based office will act as Marshal8e6's research and development centre.