It takes the total amount raised by the Silicon Valley cyber security start-up to $50 million, with backers including MS&AD Ventures, Western Technology Investments and former Cisco executive and JC2 founder and CEO, John Chambers.
However, new backer BT is the one making headlines today as it entered into an exclusive distribution deal for Safe Security's solutions to be used by and sold to businesses and public sector bodies in the UK.
The Safe Security platform SAFE will be integrated with BT's wider global portfolio, including managed security services, and the telco will collaborate with Safe Security to develop future products.
Philip Jansen (pictured), chief executive of BT, said: “Cyber security is now at the top of the agenda for businesses and governments, who need to be able to trust that they’re protected against increasing levels of attack.
"Adding SAFE to BT’s proactive, predictive security services will give customers an enhanced view of their threat level, and rapidly pinpoint specific actions needed to strengthen their defences. Already one of the world’s leading providers in a highly fragmented security market, this investment is a clear sign of BT’s ambition to grow further,” Jansen added.
The SAFE (security assessment framework for enterprises) platform to allow organisations to take a health check of their existing defences and understand their likelihood of suffering a major cyber-attack.
It can calculate the financial cost to customers’ risks and gives actionable insight on the steps that can be taken to address them. BT said the platform enables organisations to "surgically target gaps in their defences", and already protects multiple Fortune 500 companies and governments around the world.
The SAFE scoring model was built as a joint research project with MIT and incorporates cyber security sensors data, external threat intelligence, and business context then places it together in a Bayesian Network of a supervised machine learning scoring engine to generate scores and dollar value risks that an organisation faces. The scores are calculated both at a macro and micro level and can also be measured for particular lines of business.
The scores means organisations around the world will have a "common language" across teams and when dealing with other parties. The investment will also see BT designated as the recommended global partner for improving a customer’s SAFE score.
The firm's revenue increased 270% in the last financial year.
Saket Modi, co-founder and CEO of Safe Security, said: “We’re delighted to be working with a proven global security leader in BT. Their investment and strategic partnership with Safe Security will further accelerate our vision of making SAFE scores the industry standard for measuring and mitigating cyber risks. By aligning BT’s global reach and capabilities with SAFE’s ability to provide real-time visibility on cyber risk posture, we are going to fundamentally change how cyber security is measured and managed across the globe.”
