Cyberfort’s desire to “pivot more towards the private sector” is a “big reason” behind its latest acquisition, its CEO has revealed.
The Palatine-backed cybersecurity services firm announced its first acquisition in nearly six years this morning, in the shape of penetration testing specialist ZDL.
The move will swell Cyberfort’s headcount beyond 200 and revenues to around £26m, CEO Glen Williams told IT Channel Oxygen.
40-employee, £4m-plus-turnover ZDL hands Cyberfort 200 private sector customers it can cross-sell its MDR and SOC services into, Williams said.
“Pen testing is often the foot in the door of then doing a lot of other cyber services. We’ve got the capability to go and do those other cyber things, and they’ve got the customer base to go and do it,” he said.
‘We’re pivoting towards the private sector’
But the acquisition is also a deliberate move by Cyberfort to dilute its focus on a public sector space that generates half its revenues, Williams revealed.
“The public sector is typically looking to do quite a lot of insourcing of cyber. If you had a customer contract worth £6m yesterday, it’s probably going to go down to £4m,” he said.
“They’ve increased cyber salaries across the government – they’ve obviously decided cyber is core. They’re still going to have to supplement that with third-party suppliers, but you’re never going to be able to really grow it.
“They’ve also upped their game in terms of procurement and day rates in the public sector – they’re now lower than the private sector.
“It’s not to say we’re not going to sell into public sector – two of our biggest customers are still big public sector organisations – but we’re pivoting more towards the private sector commercial customers, and that’s a big reason why we’re doing this acquisition.”
Ransomware rewards
Williams recently told IT Channel Oxygen that Cyberfort – which has been backed by Palatine since 2017 – would probably undergo “an event” in “two to three years’ time”.
Its heritage secure hosting offering is becoming more “interesting” amid government plans to prohibit public bodies from paying ransomware ransoms, Williams said.
“In essence, because we’ve got our own datacentres that we continually back up, it makes it a really good solution for people. It’s another point of differentiation for us versus other cybersecurity companies.
“It’s also interesting because of data sovereignty – people are getting really quite nervous about stuff leaving the UK.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
