The UK’s incumbent operator looks to enterprise cyber security as a new source of global revenues and products.
BT has announced a multi-million pound investment in Safe Security, a cyber risk management firm with headquartered in Silicon Valley. Clearly, it sees security as good bet to generate new revenues.
The UK operator did not specify how much it had invested, but it led a funding round that raised a raised $33 million (€28 million). Some existing investors, including John Chambers, former CEO and Chair of Cisco Systems, participated too.
Riding the soonicorn…
Safe Security’s Co-founder and CEO Saket Modi quipped that the company would soon be a “soonicorn” according to the YourStory website.
Safe Security runs the Safe Security Assessment Framework for Enterprises (SAFE) platform designed to let organisations assess their defences and understand their likelihood of suffering a major cyber attack.
Industry analysis estimates that the cost of global cyber crime reached over US$1 trillion in 2020, as criminals exploited the big changes to everyday life, brought about by the pandemic, to target individuals and organisations of all sizes.
Recent attacks have affected energy infrastructure and medical care.
In the mix
BT will combine the SAFE platform with its managed security services to provide customers with a real-time view of how safe they are against an incredibly fast-moving cyber threat landscape.
BT claims that SAFE “is unique in calculating a financial cost to customers’ risks and giving actionable insight on the steps that can be taken to address them.
The platform ultimately enables organisations to surgically target gaps in their defences, and already protects multiple Fortune 500 companies and governments around the world.”
As part of this investment, BT will have exclusive rights to use and sell SAFE to businesses and public sector bodies in the UK, and will incorporate the platform within its wider global portfolio.
BT will also be designated as the recommended global partner for improving a customer’s SAFE score and will collaborative with Safe Security to develop products.
BT’s ambitions
Philip Jansen, CEO of BT, said, “Adding SAFE to BT’s proactive, predictive security services will give customers an enhanced view of their threat level, and rapidly pinpoint specific actions needed to strengthen their defences.
“Already one of the world’s leading providers in a highly fragmented security market, this investment is a clear sign of BT’s ambition to grow further.”