WatchGuard headquarters, Seattle. (WatchGuard Photo)

Security vendor WatchGuard Technologies has acquired Percipient Networks, maker of a security product oriented around DNS servers, for an undisclosed amount, the company announced Wednesday.

WatchGuard, which offers security products and services to small-and-medium-size businesses, plans to integrate Percipient’s Strongarm product into its suite of security software. Strongarm is a domain-name server system that was designed with security and simplicity in mind, it said in a press release.

If you’ve been on the internet, you’ve passed through a DNS service. The actual addresses of websites on the internet are a string of numbers, but it’s much easier for everyone to remember (and type) real-word addresses, like geekwire.com. DNS servers translate a request for a text URL into the numerical IP address, and get you to your destination.

Percipient’s product monitors those DNS requests inside companies and can detect whether or not its users are being redirected to a malicious site after they clicked a link they probably shouldn’t have. It also can give administrators at those companies advice on how to prevent these kinds of things from happening in the first place.

For its part, WatchGuard offers a wide variety of security hardware and software designed for the needs of smaller companies. It now has a little less than 700 employees; ten members of Percipient’s 13-person roster are joining WatchGuard, including co-founders Todd O’Boyle and Stephen DiCato, according to a WatchGuard representative.

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.