VASCO announced the acquisition of Alfa & Ariss, an open identity and access management specialist of Enschede, The Netherlands. VASCO acquired all of the stock of A&A in exchange for cash consideration of approximately $1.4 million.

The acquisition provides technical know-how that is expected to enhance VASCO’s DIGIPASS as a Service infrastructure and strengthen VASCO’s Enterprise Security offerings. It also brings additional engineering capabilities to VASCO.

Alfa & Ariss was founded in 1999 and is an authority in the field of developing open identity and access management solutions. Alfa & Ariss’s authentication server platform OpenASelect will be connected to VASCO’s DIGIPASS as a Service platform.

Alfa & Ariss has worked in close cooperation with Dutch PKI Internet trust services provider DigiNotar and its authentication gateway server. The acquisition of DigiNotar by VASCO was announced on January 10, 2011 and both acquisitions aim to support VASCO’s long term growth strategy in the fields of services, software and Enterprise Security.