Verizon Expands Security Offerings Via CyberTrust Acquisition

Verizon Business announced that it will acquire CyberTrust, a privately held security service provider. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, however the two companies expect the transaction to be completed sometime in the next 60 to 90 days.

Industry analyst firm Frost & Sullivan said that the managed security services market is projected to exceed $6 billion by 2011. Verizon Business aims to take advantage of that growth with the acquisition, particularly in the Asian-Pacific region.

As part of the deal, Verizon Business will also acquire ICSA Labs, an independent division of Cybertrust. ICSA Labs positions itself as an authoritive source for research, intelligence, and certification testing of products. The company currently certifies "over 95% of the installed base of anti-virus, firewall, IPSec VPN, cryptography, SSL VPN, network IPS, anti-spyware and PC firewall products commonly deployed in the world today."

Verizon Business currently has 30,000 employees (7000 of which are outside the USA), manages nearly 250,000 devices on 3500 customer networks in 60 countries around the world. But the company didn't have global security capabilities or enough 'people on the ground' to match its vast customer base. The acquisition strengthens Verizon Business offerings with CyberTrust's 800 employees, operations in 30 locations across North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region, along with its identity management and forensics solutions.

"Verizon Business chose to acquire Cybertrust to build upon Verizon Business' cloud-to-core security portfolio, adding complementary global information security services, professional services, identity management, and security operations," said a spokesperson for the company. "Cybertrust brings to Verizon Business more than 15 years of 100-percent-focused information security expertise, a world-class team of security analysts and security consulting professionals, Security Operations Centers around the world, a complete identity management and forensics practice, and the ICSA Labs."

It's uncertain whether Verizon Business will keep the CyberTrust name, but the company did say that it will make that decision as part of the ongoing planning for the integration of the two companies.