PCCW Global acquires Crypteia Networks

PCCW Global has acquired Crypteia Networks, a European company offering innovative security-as-a-service solutions. Using patent-pending technology and a non-intrusive approach, Crypteia helps organisations of any size detect and respond to the new breed of cyber threats.

Headquartered in Athens, Greece, Crypteia Networks will continue to operate as a separate brand, while benefiting from PCCW Global’s international presence and extended customer base in order to accelerate its global expansion. The company currently has more than 150 customer installations in various countries, including the UK, Germany, and Greece. Its customers range from professional services firms and retailers to financial institutions, public sector and critical infrastructure providers. PCCW Global will offer Crypteia solutions as part of its managed network services portfolio to its customers worldwide.

Mr. Marc Halbfinger, Chief Executive Officer of PCCW Global, said, “Organisations of every size need to adapt their approach to network security in order to combat the new breed of cyber risk, which includes advanced persistent threats, cybercrime, and other forms of attack.”

The worldwide Threat Intelligence Security Services market is predicted by IDC to be worth US$1.4 billion by 2018.

Cyber threats today can range from data theft and sabotage to attacks carried out by traditional crime organisations and even cyber terrorism targeting critical infrastructure. No organisation or company is immune and, in fact, many may already have been infiltrated without their knowledge. In a February 2014 report, Gartner suggested that “organisations must assume they are compromised, and, therefore, invest in detective capabilities that provide continuous monitoring for patterns and behaviours indicative of malicious intent”.

“Existing security solutions such as firewalls, antivirus, and intrusion detection systems are insufficient for this new breed of threat,” said Mr. Halbfinger. “These traditional perimeter and network security measures rely on the threat having been previously identified and analysed, whereas the new breed of attacker is just that, completely new and never-before-seen.”

“At PCCW Global, we believe that organisations may not be able to achieve the necessary level of protection on their own. Building and running real-time predictive security solutions, and monitoring multiple sources of threat intelligence, is complicated. The threats are not isolated and therefore neither can the responses. In addition, increasing regulatory scrutiny and compliance requirements means corporations in many industries must ensure that that they have taken all possible steps to protect and audit the integrity of their IT systems and data,” he added.

Crypteia’s patent-pending MOREAL reporting and alerting platform with Security Incident and Event Management features and solutions can be cloud-based, and used with any operating environment. MOREAL correlates and analyses customer network data, global network data, and aggregated threat intelligence, thereby identifying potential advanced threats. The service is backed up by Crypteia’s Global Security Operation Center.

Mr. Yiannis Giokas, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Crypteia Networks, said, “A key reason that many organisations are currently vulnerable is that most solutions aiming to combat the new threats are highly complex, costly, and time-consuming to administer. Crypteia was designed to be the opposite: lightweight, cloud-based, automated, and affordable. The Crypteia approach is non-intrusive, requiring no additional hardware or software, and uses data logs that most companies are already generating. This means that companies do not have to change the way they are currently operating, nor do they need to make large and costly purchases in order to institute appropriate protection and analysis. We believe such an approach is absolutely critical in ensuring that organisations of all shapes and sizes can protect themselves from the ‘unknown’.”

Mr. Halbfinger added, “With the acquisition of Crypteia Networks, PCCW Global can further provide a secure communications channel for customers accessing and protecting their most valuable assets via a service chain of managed network transport and connectivity, content delivery, and network security which will become increasingly integrated over time.”

Crypteia Networks was founded by Mr. Yiannis Giokas, an entrepreneur from Greece with an MBA from the Athens University of Business and Economics and a BSc in Electrical Engineering from the Athens Technological Institute. The company was recently named a finalist for two prestigious awards: the 2014 MassChallenge, a US based entrepreneurship accelerator, and the European Commission’s 2014 European Enterprise Network Awards.

The transaction does not constitute a notifiable transaction of HKT Trust and HKT Limited under Chapter 14 of the Rules Governing the Listing of Securities on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.