Network Associates announced Friday that it will buy Entercept Security Technologies, its second intrusion-detection acquisition in the past four days.

The security company will pay $120 million cash for Entercept, bolstering its recently announced acquisition of IntruVert Networks. The two companies protect customers from electronic intruders--Entercept by detecting attacks on servers, and IntruVert by detecting odd behavior on the network.

"It is a very logical extension of what we offer to enterprise customers," said Art Matin, president of Network Associates' McAfee Security division. "What Entercept has that goes beyond traditional antivirus solutions is signature-based detection for known attacks and anomaly detection for new attacks."

Although the two deals will move Network Associates into a new market, more importantly, it will diversify the company beyond its one-trick pony status with content filtering and bring it closer to competing head-to-head with Symantec's broader security product portfolio, said Matt Barzowskas, an analyst with First Albany.

"Network Associates used to have an intrusion detection product two years ago, but sold it off to focus on antivirus," he said.

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