Lloyd’s Register acquires cyber security provider Nettitude

Lloyd’s Register (LR), one of the world’s leading providers of professional services for engineering and technology, has recently acquired Nettitude.

Nettitude is 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 due to increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks on businesses around the world.

According to the Ponemon Institute’s Cost of Cyber the number of breaches is up an average 27.4% year on year. 86% of companies around the world reported that they had experienced at least one cyber incident in 2017. This pushes businesses of all sizes to look at ways on 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 cyber security has increased, with new standards being developed with more complex and wide-ranging compliance requirements.