The acquisition is expected to be completed in October Symantec has agreed to buy Austin, Texas-based security vendor WholeSecurity, the two companies announced Thursday.By purchasing the five-year-old company, Symantec will be able to combine WholeSecurity’s “behavior-based” security software with its own consumer and enterprise security products, a Symantec spokeswoman said.Products such as Symantec’s Norton Internet Security suite use samples of code, called signatures, to identify malicious software. WholeSecurity’s software, on the other hand, determines whether potential viruses are malicious based on the things they are trying to do. This behavior-based approach is designed to better protect computers from unidentified virus threats, which are typically not detected by signature-based products.WholeSecurity’s Confidence Online product suite includes security software for Web applications and PCs, and the company also sells antiphishing products.WholeSecurity also sponsors the Phish Report Network, a service that aggregates reports of new phishing attacks, which was launched in February. Terms of the acquisition, which is expected to be completed in October, were not disclosed.WholeSecurity employs “less than 100” employees, but while Symantec expects to retain “key employees,” some layoffs are a possibility, the spokeswoman said. “Symantec is in the preliminary stages of doing an employee assessment,” she said. Technology Industry