Facebook, has set its sights on purchasing security startup PrivateCore – a venture-backed by security veterans from VMware and Google.

PrivateCore’s CEO Oded Horovitz said Facebook has done more than any company to connect the world and PrivateCore wants to use its secure server technology to make the connections even more secure.

“Since the beginning, we have worked tirelessly on our technology to protect servers from malware threats, unauthorized physical access, and malicious hardware devices,” Horovitz said.

“Over time, Facebook plans to deploy our technology into the Facebook stack to help protect the people who use Facebook. We know we will learn and grow as we continue developing our technology and making it stronger.”

The move comes after a growing number of high-profile data breaches.

The New York Times reported last week, a Russian group had hacked more than 1.2bn usernames and passwords belonging to more than 500 million email addresses.

Facebook’s acquisition is expected to close before the end of the year.

Facebook’s chief security officer Joe Sullivan posted about the acquisition on his Facebook Profile.

“I’ve seen how much people care about the security of data they entrust to services like Facebook,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said Facebook finished implementing HTTPS encryption by default over a year ago and has been working to secure all data center traffic with additional protections.

“Their vCage technology protects servers from persistent malware, unauthorized physical access, and malicious hardware devices, making it safer to run any application in outsourced, hosted or cloud environments,” Sullivan said.