MSSP Integrity360 Drives European Expansion with Dublin SOC

Managed security service provider (MSSP) Integrity360 has marked the latest step in its ambitious European expansion plans. The firm has opened an €8 million (US $8.6 million) secure operations center (SOC) in its hometown of Dublin — it’s fourth in Europe.

The SOC forms part of the MSSP’s plans to create 200 new jobs over the next three years. Many of the new roles will be for cybersecurity consultants, analysts and architects.

Chief executive Ian Brown, alongside private equity firm August Equity, led a partial acquisition of Integrity360 in 2021. Since then, the firm has seen rapid growth with an acquisition-hungry strategy.

It acquired UK MSSP Caretower in 2022. It then expanded in the Nordics with Swedish cyber firm Netsecure in May. More recently it snapped up Irish PCI QSA (Payment Card Industry Qualified Security Assessor) and MSSP Advantio in July.

Now, Integrity360 employs approximately 100 people in Ireland and around 500 across the wider group. It has already established SOCs in Bulgaria, Sweden and Italy. As well as offices in those countries, it has a presence in the UK, Spain, Lithuania and Ukraine. In total it serves around 2,000 customers across the continent.

“We’re making acquisitions is to expand our geographic reach,” said Brown. “Yes, we could have chosen to have stood up a team in Stockholm from scratch, but it will take a lot longer. So we were very happy to be able to welcome Netsecure into the stable. And in the case of Advantio, they have a substantial presence in Italy, also in Spain, and other operational centers.”

With the expansion into Europe, group revenue is expected to exceed €115 million in 2023.

Integrity360 a ‘One-Stop-Shop’

Brown is a UK cyber industry veteran. He previously owned leading UK MSSP SecureData, which was sold in 2019 to Orange Cyberdefence.

Integrity360’s Ian Brown

“We concluded that we would like to do something else in cyber, and this time, our ambitions were bigger and bolder. We wanted to create a pan-European version of SecureData,” said Brown.

Since then, the firm has “gone into overdrive,” said Brown.

“A big part is about having the right people around,” he noted. “I made quite a lot of changes to the leadership team. In particular, we stood up from scratch a very high hitting, super cyber experienced team in the UK.”

Alongside expansion in Europe, Integrity360 said it has expanded and upgraded its managed and professional services.

“Our vision as a businesses is to be one-stop-shop for cyber services. We’re not looking to just do a niche bit of it. We’re looking to provide an end to end solution for the customer,” said Brown.

There are more acquisitions in Integrity360’s future, added Brown.

“Clearly, there are still a lot of other countries in Europe. Europe’s a big place. We’ve come from having one location here in Dublin to having seven around Europe,” he said. “You’ll see others, and we’ll stand up additional SOCs as well.”

Integrity360 Competing On a Global Scale

The new Dublin SOC includes managed detection and response (MDR), endpoint detection and response (EDR), and extended detection and response (XDR) solutions. These provide for the monitoring and management of customer IT networks on a 24/7 basis for potential cyberattacks.

Irish Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Simon Coveney (cutting the ribbon in the picture above), attended the opening of the SOC. He praised Integrity360 as “an Irish indigenous company that has grown and developed to compete on a global scale.”