Arctic Wolf announced that it will begin full-scale entry into the Japanese market following the completion of its acquisition of Cylance’s business on the 4th. It said it will take over Cylance’s business in Japan and focus on further business expansion. Founded in 2012, Arctic Wolf is a major security operations center (SOC) service provider based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, USA. It has about 3,000 employees, of which about 800 are security engineers. It has more than 10,000 customers and more than 2,000 partners in more than 80 countries. The company’s SOC processes more than 8 trillion security events every week, and handles about 600 security incident response support cases per year. Cylance, which the company acquired, is a long-established company that develops next-generation endpoint security software products using machine learning and AI. It was developed as the company’s cybersecurity division following the acquisition of BlackBerry in 2019.
Arctic Wolf acquired Cylance’s business as a result of BlackBerry’s restructuring to focus on its embedded software business for automobiles. Nick Schneider, president and CEO, who appeared at the press conference on the same day, explained that while many cybersecurity vendors develop their business around products and platforms, Cylance has expanded its platform and products around security operations centered on SOC. “Our mission is to make our customers’ security measures work. Current security solutions are complex and siloed, and we can solve this problem and improve our customers’ security investments to make them more efficient and effective,” he said. He also spoke about the endpoint security product market in which Cylance is located, saying, “It is already mature, the products are complex, and the vendor ecosystem is closed. We are in a period of transformation, and by integrating Cylance’s AI technology into our platform, we can strengthen the data foundation to protect the vast attack surface and strengthen our customers’ protection. Cylance has a strong track record with AI, is highly supported by customers and partners, and is in a leading position, especially in the Japanese market.”
Arctic Wolf has developed the “Aurora” platform for security services centered on SOC, and provides managed services such as threat detection and response, as well as educational training services. With the acquisition of Cylance, endpoint protection (EPP) and threat detection and response (EDR) have been added. The EPP product “CylancePROTECT” will be renamed “Aurora Protect”, and the EDR product “CylanceOPTICS” will be renamed “Aurora Endpoint Protect”, but they will continue to be provided as before. In addition, “Aurora Managed Endpoint Defense On-Demand” and “Aurora Managed Endpoint Defense”, which Arctic Wolf will provide as managed services for the operation of both products, have been newly added. “We want to combine our security operation know-how and Cylance’s AI in endpoint protection to achieve stronger security and protect our customers efficiently and effectively,” he said. Tsutomu Yoshimoto, who has served as business manager since the days of the former Cylance Japan subsidiary, has been appointed as Arctic Wolf’s new vice president of Japan. Yoshimoto said, “This is our second acquisition, but unlike BlackBerry (which has a different business entity), we are happy to be part of Arctic Wolf, a security specialist with the world’s largest SOC. Although we are in the position of being acquired, Arctic Wolf has shown understanding of Japanese business, and we were able to smoothly transition to a new system, including Japan’s unique initiatives.”
According to Yoshimoto, on the 5th, the day after the Cylance acquisition was completed, contract renewals as Arctic Wolf began, and the new menu of managed services was also accepted in Japan. Approximately 2,000 domestic customers and partners have been able to smoothly transition to the new system. In the future, the company will focus on expanding sales of EDR products and managed services in particular for its domestic business. Schneider said, “We will strengthen our investment in Japan, and in particular enhance our resources (human resources, etc.) to support our customers.”
SOURCE: Yahoo
