Israel Matzav

The company was told US officials feared the transaction could endanger some of government's most sensitive computer systems.

The objections by the FBI and Pentagon were partly over specialized intrusion detection software known as "Snort," which guards some classified US military and intelligence computers.

Snort's author is a senior executive at Sourcefire Inc., which would be sold to publicly traded Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. in Ramat Gan, Israel. Sourcefire is based in Columbia, Maryland.

The contrast between the administration's handling of the $6.8 billion (€5.69 billion) Dubai ports deal and the Israeli company's $225 (€188.22) million technology purchase offers an uncommon glimpse into the US government's choices to permit some deals but raise deep security concerns over others.

...

The ongoing 45-day investigation into the Israeli deal is only the 26th of its type conducted among 1,600 business transactions reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. The panel, facing criticism by US Congress about its scrutiny of the ports deal, judges the security risks of foreign companies buying or investing in American industry.

In private meetings between the panel and Check Point, officials from the FBI and US Defense Department objected forcefully to permitting any foreign company to acquire some sensitive Sourcefire technology for preventing hacker break-ins and monitoring data traffic, an executive familiar with the discussions told The Associated Press. This executive spoke on condition of anonymity because government negotiations are supposed to remain confidential.

Under the sale, publicly announced Oct. 6, Check Point would own all Sourcefire's patents, source-code blueprints for its software and the expertise of employees.

This is pretty interesting, especially because Snort seems to be quite publicly available.

Read the whole thing.