With a merger and new products under its belt, PatchLink Corp. managers changed the security company's name, as well as the course it's on.

As of today, PatchLink, a privately held provider of patch and vulnerability management software, is going to be known as Lumension Security. The patch management company also is expanding beyond its traditional business borders and will begin focusing on producing a family of security management tools.

"There is considerable amount of consolidation in the marketplace as security vendors add capabilities to complete their existing portfolios," said Patrick Clawson, chairman and CEO of Lumension Security, in a written statement. "Our new corporate strategy meets the increasing customer demand for tightly integrated solutions that are cost effective, easy to use and manage. The market is crowded with stand-alone point solutions. Lumension Security is shifting the paradigm from a reactive to a proactive approach."

This past February, PatchLink bought STAT Guardian Vulnerability Management Suite from Harris Corp., a global information technology company. Then in June, PatchLink announced plans to merge with endpoint security provider SecureWave.

At the time, PatchLink reported that together, the companies would have more than 5,000 customers worldwide and 230 employees. PatchLink is in a comfortable position in the market as long as Microsoft's Patch Tuesday continues to hit every month, forcing IT and security managers to scramble to get an often substantial list of bugs patched. On the other side of the merger coin, SecureWave is known for its Sanctuary product, which takes a "white-listing" approach that allows only approved network traffic inside a company's firewall.

"Constantly reacting to perceived threats creates a chaotic situation for IT managers, forcing them to frantically issue ad hoc emergency patches, update signatures, and review security policies," said Charles Kolodgy, research director at IDC, in a written statement. "To further complicate matters, organizations are often dealing with disparate, unaligned security solutions that impede swift remediation. Lumension is offering solutions that take the initiative away from the attacker by combining best-of-breed technologies that integrate vulnerability assessment, remediation and policy enforcement processes on a continuous cycle."