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The company is reportedly offering a total of $AUD 356 million in stock options and a 61 per cent premium on Utimaco's 90 average trading price. Utimaco is touted as a global leader in the encryption of data on computers, disks and removable media.

Utimaco's main focus is to develop software for data encryption. Data is encrypted for secure transmission from clients to and from servers. By encrypting client data, if a laptop is lost or stolen, the data on it becomes automatically useless.

According to the company CEO Steve Munford, this potential combination "allows Sophos to better address your data protection needs beyond anti-virus, anti-spam and web protection. Our future direction integrates information control and security compliance with existing anti-malware infrastructure to make security more manageable, and merging with the market leader in mobile data security provides a strong foundation for growth and leadership".

Sophos says the acquisition process will take some months, adding that the deal is subject to a variety of EU approval hoops, but Sophos hopes to complete the merger by October of this year.