Dive Brief:
- On Monday at the RSA security conference in San Francisco, IBM announced its purchase of Resilient Systems, a company that gives customers a plan for how to respond to a data breach.
- IBM plans to retain Resilient's employees, including members of its C-Suite.
- With the purchase, IBM can now offer companies solutions for both preventing and responding to cybersecurity attacks.
Dive Insight:
While demand for cybersecurity solutions to protect businesses is increasing, the cybersecurity market has seen significant consolidation and a decline in valuations of public and private cyber firms over the last six months. Last month, FireEye purchased threat intelligence firm iSight Partners for $200 million. Reuters reported that iSight CEO John Watters was aiming for a $1 billion valuation when he talked last year about a potential IPO in 2016. Now, the deal is worth just one-fifth of that hoped-for valuation.
Caleb Barlow, vice president of security at IBM, said companies often lack a coherent plan for dealing with a cybersecurity attack. With new services based on the Resilient’s offerings, the company will be able to offer customers plans for after a breach, consulting services, post-incident forensic analysis and IT strategies to help prevent an attack.
IBM has been investing heavily in security. It’s security division has grown to $2 billion in revenue with the company adding roughly one thousand employees last year alone, Barlow said.
