EMC has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Silver Tail Systems, a provider of real-time web session intelligence and behavioral analysis. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Upon closing, Silver Tail will operate within the RSA security division and is expected to extend the capabilities of RSA's Identity Protection and Verification (IPV) solutions, as well as other areas across RSA's enterprise security portfolio.

The acquisition is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2012, subject to certain closing conditions.

The rapid evolution of malware and advanced online threats has left growing numbers of online banking, ecommerce and government web sites and their customers vulnerable to attack, account takeover and fraud.

In response to this evolution organizations historically have focused on building fraud detection and security strategies that try to identify what a bad transaction looks like, creating solutions that must always play catch-up to the latest threats.

Silver Tail Systems' web session intelligence is the response to this evolution in threats and fraud, using a Big Data-driven approach to gather and analyze mass quantities of information in real time and at scale to deepen visibility into web sessions and mobile traffic.

The information is fed into Silver Tail Systems' behavior analysis engine to review at both user and population levels to detect anomalies, IT security threats, fraud, insider threats, business logic abuse and other malicious activity.

Art Coviello, RSA Executive Chairman and Executive Vice President, EMC Corporation said: “The industry is well beyond the point of providing effective security using static, perimeter point tools that fail to keep up with dynamic cyber attackers. Customers need better intelligence, analytics, and the ability to respond in real time which is a capability that Silver Tail's products do extraordinarily well to help foil web-based attacks. Silver Tail offers proven anti-fraud solutions that complement RSA's portfolio of risk-based and adaptive products and services.