A Bath-based web firm has been acquired by Automattic, the parent company of the popular WordPress publishing platform used by Sony Music and Time Inc., among other notable companies.
Automattic announced on Tuesday its acquisition of Parka LLC for an undisclosed price. The move will allow Automattic to integrate Parka’s security tool, BruteProtect, into one of WordPress’s main products, Jetpack, that runs on millions of websites. In addition, the BruteProtect product team, mostly based in Bath, will join Automattic.
“They’re long-time contributors to the WordPress community,” Matt Mullenweg, founder and CEO of Automattic, said in a blog post. “We’re excited to see them join forces with the Jetpack team and up the level of security, protection, and peace of mind we’ll be able to bring to the millions of sites already using Jetpack.”
Parka launched BruteProtect in 2013 as a free plug-in for the WordPress open-source content management system. The plug-in fights against large-scale hacking attempts, also known as “brute-force attacks,” by blocking infected computers that seek to break into WordPress-powered websites and inject malicious software.
With the acquisition, BruteProtect will eventually be integrated into WordPress’s Jetpack product.
BruteProtect has protected against more than 100 million brute-force attacks on more than 100,000 websites since it was first launched in April 2013, according to its website. Parka also has a premium version that will be discontinued after the Jetpack integration is complete.
