Secureworks announces layoffs for almost ten per cent of staff

The Dell Technologies majority-owned group said it’s 'shifting investments' to growth areas such as its Taegis platform

Cybersecurity firm Secureworks has told employees is cutting nine per cent of its workforce, according to a regulatory filing, a day after its majority-owner Dell Technologies announced a round of layoffs.

Secureworks did not disclose the total number of workers affected by the layoffs in the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The company last disclosed its employee headcount in a regulatory filing in March 2022, when it said that it had 2,351 employees as of January 28, 2022.

If its staff size has remained similar, the nine per cent workforce reduction would affect more than 200 Secureworks employees.

Last week, Dell Technologies announced layoffs affecting 6,650 employees, or about five per cent of its staff. Dell owned approximately 82.7 per cent of outstanding shares in Secureworks as of the end of October, according to an SEC filing.

Secureworks is joining numerous other companies in the cybersecurity industry, as well as in the tech industry overall, in cutting back on staff amid a worsening economic environment.

Other publicly traded cybersecurity vendors to cut staff have included Okta, which laid off 300 employees with a five per cent workforce reduction last week, and Sophos, which reportedly laid off 450 staff members in January.

Secureworks said in the SEC filing that it's enacting the layoffs as part of "aligning its investments more closely with its strategic priorities."

The company has shifted its focus in recent years to extended detection and response (XDR), a fast-growing category within cybersecurity that correlates security data feeds from across a customer's entire environment to help with prioritising threats.

Secureworks disclosed hitting $222m in annual recurring revenue, up 80 per cent year over year as of the end of October for its Taegis platform, which includes XDR as well as vulnerability detection and response (VDR). The growth has been buoyed by a surge in channel sales for Secureworks, executives have said.

Under its new financial plan, Secureworks "intends to rebalance investments across all functions to align with the company's top strategic priorities and growth opportunities, such as higher value, higher margin Taegis solutions and other priorities, in order to balance continued growth with improving operating margins over time," the company said in the SEC filing.