KEYW Corp. [KEYW] on Wednesday said it has acquired two-Maryland based companies involved in cyber security and other information technology capabilities and has created a new business sector aimed at inserting the company’s technologies into new markets.

Terms of the deals for Ponte Technologies and Milestone Intelligence Group were not disclosed. PonteTech, which was founded in 2007, was acquired last week and Milestone, founded in 2010, in January.iStock Cyber Lock

The new sector is called Emerging Technologies and Markets (ETM) and will be led by Dick Schaeffer, a new hire by KEYW who was previously led his own consulting firm after retiring as director of Information Assurance at the National Security Agency. PonteTec and Milestone form the core of ETM, which will focus on new markets, identifying emerging technologies with potential for organic growth, and identify and shape opportunities for new technology solutions, KEYW said.

“A critical part of KEYW’s growth strategy is to continue our efforts to go down a ‘horizontal path,’” Len Moodispaw, president and CEO of KEYW, said in a statement. “The horizontal path leverages KEYW’s deep technology experience in solving some of the intelligence community’s most difficult problems to develop new solutions, new products, and new markets to enhance organic growth. Under Dick’s leadership, I expect ETM will play a significant role in executing this strategy. The acquisitions of Ponte Technologies and Milestone Intelligence Group will serve as accelerators in key technology areas such as cyber security, cloud computing, and test and evaluation engineering.”

PonteTec has capabilities in cyber security engineering and research and skills in network, host, and application security, cryptography, security automation, vulnerability assessment, and penetration testing and malware analysis. The company has customers in government and the commercial sector, particularly in financial services.

Milestone has core competencies in cyber security, cloud computing, software engineering, and test and evaluation engineering. The company’s customers are in the intelligence community.

KEYW indicated that the senior leadership of both firms is remaining with the company.