Claranet orchestrates acquisition of UK cybersecurity consultancy

MSP hopes to gain access to US and Australian markets after snapping up ethical hacking firm

Claranet has announced the acquisition of NotSoSecure, an IT firm that specialises in ethical hacking training and penetration testing.

NotSoSecure was founded in Cambridge, and has offices in San Francisco and India. It also supplies ethical hacking training to the Black Hat conferences, which provide security consulting and training to hackers, corporations and government agencies around the world.

This is Claranet's second UK acquisition this year, after it snapped up Union Solutions in May. It has made a spate of acquisitions to its portfolio in the past five years, including UK security provider Sec-1 last year.

Charles Nasser, founder and CEO of Claranet, said the merger will allow the MSP to gain access to new markets.

"Our acquisition of NotSoSecure has been made as part of our vision to further enhance the security services and expertise that we are able to offer to our customers, as well as gain access to new global markets such as the US and Australia," he said.

"We are confident that bringing the company into the Claranet Group will be hugely beneficial to the customers that we serve."

Nasser added that the IT firm's desire to be at the forefront of cybersecurity training and innovation were "crucial factors" in the decision to make the purchase.

"Their ambitious aims for growth are very much aligned with our own, so we are eagerly anticipating the impact they will have on the success of the wider group," he said.

NotSoSecure's founders Dan Haagman and Sumit Siddharth will remain with the organisation.

Siddarth, CTO of NotSoSecure, said the merger puts the IT consultancy in a "strong position" to seize market share in the cybersecurity training industry.

"Since we established the business, the risk of cyberattacks for organisations around the world has grown exponentially. However, this has not been matched by an increase in training and knowledge and, as a result, there is now a severe global skills shortage in cybersecurity," he said.

"Our strong presence at Black Hat and other leading conferences means that we get a lot of business in the US through word of mouth alone, but I believe that we are just scratching the surface."

Claranet claims to have annual revenues of around £325m, along with over 2,000 employees working with 6,500 across eight countries. It secured an £80m minority investment from Tikehau Capital last year.

The details of the deal were not disclosed.