BT's announcement last week that it had made a "multi million pound" investment in Silicon Valley startup Safe Security, a cyber risk management firm, was the latest in a series moves by the UK incumbent to beef up its cybersecurity portfolio.

It's a canny one, too, according to Adam Etherington, global lead for B2B cloud and cybersecurity research and advisory at Omdia, a Light Reading sister company.

By gaining access to the startup's Security Assessment Framework for Enterprise, happily dubbed Safe for short, BT experts can work alongside organizations in assessing levels of vulnerability to cyberattacks and determine the so-called "Safe score."

More importantly, said Etherington, by using "Safe score" and associated AI/ML technology as a starting point, BT can help organizations "drive decision making" surrounding their security investments. The Safe platform, according to Safe Security, is "unique" in calculating financial cost to customers' risks and giving "actionable insight" on the steps that can be taken to address them.

"The partnership will bolster BT's capability to assess, quantify and prioritize critical cybersecurity areas to address across their large managed security services customer base," Etherington told Light Reading.

Getting its feet under the Safe table is also timely. "The attack surface of organizations dramatically increased from COVID-19 as enterprises moved to enable remote working," added Etherington. "Addressing the implications from a potential breach or a recent SEV [severity] 1 incident will continue to attract scrutiny from boardrooms and government."

Nuts and bolts of Safe

As part of its investment, BT gets exclusive rights to use and sell Safe to businesses and public sector bodies in the UK. The idea is to incorporate the platform within BT's "wider global portfolio." BT is also designated as "recommended global partner" for improving a customer's "Safe score."

Etherington thought the UK aspect of the deal probably offered BT greater revenue opportunities, enabling it to meet demand from enterprises who want to leverage the Safe platform. The Omdia analyst emphasized that the "bigger value pool" for BT lay in Safe providing a way for the UK incumbent to show off its cybersecurity wares and expertise in response to specific threats identified by the platform.

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Etherington anticipated that Safe will initially allow BT to drive sales of consulting, integration and managed security services from large enterprises, followed by an increase in wallet share among mid size businesses in the medium term once the platform is productized and integrated with other BT security solutions. BT is also to work collaboratively with Safe Security to develop future products.

"BT's historical growth has largely been organic," noted Etherington, "but this investment signals that BT recognizes the fast-moving cyber security market. I expect further investments and partnerships/alliances to increase regional capability in growth geographies and industry specific security capabilities, addressing such things and edge, IoT and 5G security given BT's telco expertise."

— Ken Wieland, contributing editor, special to Light Reading