Wireless communications giant AT&T has spun off its managed cybersecurity business into an independent company called LevelBlue, entering a highly competitive market with more than 1,300 employees and seven operations centers around the world. become.
The announcement on the first day of the RSA conference in San Francisco comes six months after AT&T announced its intention to enter into a joint venture with Chicago-based investment firm Willjam Ventures. The carrier will maintain a minority stake in the new company, which will be headquartered in Dallas and has offices in Ireland, Spain and Australia.
Bob McCullen, former CEO of cybersecurity and managed security services provider Trustwave, is chairman and CEO of Level Blue, a longtime executive at AT&T, and most recently vice president of transformation and strategy at health insurance company Humana. Sundar Annamalai, who previously served as president of the company, is the company president. .
When they announced the plan in November 2023, AT&T executives said the company was integrating more security features into its network and edge products and that the company would expand its business by spinning out the AT&T Cybersecurity Managed Services business. said that they now have a managed services partner they can rely on. They reiterated this point with RSA, and Rick Welday, executive vice president of AT&T's Enterprise Markets business unit, said in a statement: Promote innovation in the cybersecurity field to stay ahead of evolving cyber threats. ”
AI and cloud
In a blog post, McCarren noted that the enterprise computing landscape is rapidly evolving and the need for managed cybersecurity services to keep up with that change.
“As organizations continue to innovate, technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing create a more dynamic and expanded threat landscape,” he wrote. “With LevelBlue, organizations no longer have to sacrifice security and innovation and can achieve both with confidence.”
McCarren continued, “Cyber resiliency is not easily defined, nor is it easily achieved without the necessary support. It will help you resolve it in time.”
The new company will inherit capabilities that existed within AT&T, including managed security services to help implement security-focused plans while also addressing issues such as cost and complexity. . We also provide consulting services to help organizations assess their needs, plan and design their operations, identify top security priorities, and implement proactive and proactive techniques.
LevelBlue also comes with four 24-hour global security operations networks (SOCs) and three network operations centers (NOCs). The company said its Threat Intelligence Group operates a platform that leverages machine learning technology and support through Open Threat Exchange (OTX). OTX has more than 235,000 security professionals who submit more than 20 million threat indicators every day.
reduce debt
Reports of AT&T's decision to divest its security business began circulating in early 2023, with Reuters reporting that this was a large scale of business cuts to reduce debt from its $108.7 billion acquisition of Time Warner in 2018. It was reported that this was part of the initiative. The carrier changed tack three years later and spun out Discovery to create a new business.
The same year it acquired Time Warner, AT&T also acquired Alienvault, making it the foundation of a new cybersecurity business that it hopes will attract more enterprise business. According to Reuters, AT&T wants to reduce its net debt by about $24 billion in 2022 and another $100 billion by next year. At the end of December, the airline had $132.2 billion in debt.
Synopsys to sell software security unit
AT&T is not the only tech company to announce that it will separate security from its operations. Silicon design and verification company Synopsys today announced an agreement with two private equity firms, Clearlake Capital Group and Francisco Partners, to sell its Software Integrity Group business for up to $2.1 billion. Its goal is application security testing software.
Again, the driving force behind this decision was the rapidly expanding AI landscape.
“For Synopsys, this move further strengthens our focus on unprecedented high-growth opportunities in our core business, as our technology research and development teams seek to capitalize on this era of AI-driven pervasive intelligence. Silicon and systems engineering are coming together, Synopsys President and CEO Sashin Ghazi said in a statement.
The company's Software Integrity Group offers a variety of software and services designed to give developers tools to help secure the software they're building. This includes software risk analysis tools such as the Polaris Software Integrity Platform, configuration analysis, fuzz and security testing, and penetration testing.
Additionally, our services range from insider threat detection and red teaming to threat modeling and security testing.
The transaction is expected to close in the second half of this year. The new company will be managed by the management team of Software Integrity Group. The new name will be announced at a later date.
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