PRESS RELEASE: Lloyd’s Register (LR), one of the world’s leading providers of professional services for engineering and technology, today announces the acquisition of Nettitude, a market-leading provider of cyber security services with some of the most sophisticated technical capabilities in the industry.
Cyber security has become a key challenge for industry, against a backdrop of high-profile and increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks on businesses around the world. The number of breaches is up an average 27.4% year on year, according to the Ponemon Institute’s Cost of Cyber Crime report and 86% of companies around the world reported that they had experienced at least one cyber incident in 2017. Understandably, businesses of all sizes are looking at how they can improve their resilience.
Founded in 2003, Nettitude is an award-winning provider of cyber security assurance, risk management and managed detection and response services, to organisations across the globe. With 140 employees worldwide, Nettitude is a research led organisation that has developed innovative tools and techniques to mitigate the constantly evolving cyber threat. The organisation delivers around the clock security operations services to clients and has built a strong reputation in delivering assurance around sophisticated threat agents.
LR already provides a range of cyber security services to its clients, including certification, compliance, training, audit and security consulting. The acquisition strengthens LR’s existing portfolio to provide market leading cyber security services to clients, including penetration testing, information security consulting, managed security services and incident response handling.
LR CEO Alastair Marsh said: “This is an important acquisition for Lloyd’s Register to enhance our capability in assuring the increasingly complex supply chains in which we operate. Information and operational technology security is a key concern for our clients across all sectors, as we see increasing dependencies on technology and challenges created by Industry 4.0.”
Nettitude founder and CEO Rowland Johnson said: “The combination of Nettitude’s focused cyber security capability and LR’s ability to execute across a broad range of sectors will make a formidable partnership. As the worlds of Information Technology and Operating Technology collide, the need to build integrated cyber security solutions will become essential. LR’s geographic reach, and vision for how technology and data will influence industry will supercharge Nettitude’s growth, and provide significant synergies to LR’s clients and partners.”
The need for cyber security solutions and growth in cyber security is driven by three broad areas; increasing levels of connectivity – the move towards a more integrated and interdependent, data driven and automated economy (‘Industry 4.0’); growing risk of attacks – cyber-attacks are now targeting a broader spectrum of industries and companies, resulting in a significant increase in corporate concerns over cyber security; and more regulation – regulatory focus on cybersecurity has increased, with new standards being developed with more complex and wide-ranging compliance requirements.
The combination of Nettitude’s service portfolio and LR’s existing capabilities provides a complete suite of cyber security services to help clients identify, protect, detect, respond and recover from cyber threats.
Nettitude received legal advice from DLA Piper and M&A advice from Livingstone Partners.
Lloyd’s Register received legal advice from Squire Patton Boggs.
